The California Stem Cell Report will be mostly dark during the next two weeks since its editor, yours truly, will be out of Internet range sailing in the Perlas islands south of Panama.

However, we want to let you know that a meeting of the governing board of the California stem cell agency is scheduled for Jan. 17 in San Diego. Also, the Institute of Medicine later this month will hold one of its two public sessions in California to assess the performance of the $3 billion stem cell research effort. The agenda for the Jan. 24-25 meeting in San Francisco had not been posted at the time of this writing. But the IOM said it will be available at least 10 days ahead of the meeting.

The IOM also has not yet filled the spot on the CIRM study panel vacated by David Scadden of Harvard when he resigned last month because of a conflict of interest involving Fate Therapeutics of San Diego.

If you are eager to delve into the details of what the CIRM governing board is up to, you can find the agenda and perhaps additional background information at this location on the CIRM web site when it is posted, probably by Jan. 7. While the meeting is scheduled for San Diego, usually one or two remote locations around the state are available where interested parties can participate. The California Stem Cell Report does plan to cover the meeting live via the Internet audiocast and file reports as warranted.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The California stem cell agency is proposing a $40 million program to set up two stem cell genomic research centers, including possibly one at a for-profit research enterprise.

The plan would augment an existing program in genomics or bioinformatics, according to a CIRM document. The goal is to rapidly build "an effective stem cell genomics infrastructure that will provide a new platform for the application of genomics tools to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine."

The proposal is scheduled to be considered at a meeting of the CIRM directors Science Subcommittee next Wednesday. It will then go to the full CIRM board at its Jan. 17 meeting.

The stem cell agency's proposal said,

"Genomics technologies and the data sets they yield are fast becoming the currency of biology and medicine. The cost of genome sequencing is dropping exponentially, a trend that will soon make genome-scale characterization a practical tool for fundamental studies of stem cell biology and for advancing therapeutic applications. Meanwhile, cell therapeutics are advancing toward clinical trials, and hES and hiPS cells have become the gold standard for studying human cell biology, tissue and organ development and repair, and disease. Combining genomic technologies with stem cell research will accelerate fundamental understanding of human biology, disease mechanisms, tissue engineering and cell therapies...."

The RFA for the proposal would be released in May with board approval of applications in the winter of 2013.

Interested parties can participate in the meeting at locations in San Francisco, Irvine, Oakland, Pleasanton, Duarte, Los Angeles (2), Stanford, Healdsburg and Irvine. Addresses can be found on the agenda for the meeting.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The California stem cell agency plans to hand out $370 million this year, including a whopping $240 million in what it calls its disease team round.

That amounts to $42,237 every hour of every day of 2012.

Amy Adams, CIRM's communications manager, reported the $370 million figure in the CIRM research blog, which she edits. The other rounds of funding for 2012, Adams wrote, include $95 million for early translational research, $35 million for basic biology and $2.2 million for stem cell research by high school students. Those funds would be routed through universities.

So far CIRM has handed out $1.2 billion to 454 recipients in the seven years it has been in business. It is expected to run out of its $3 billion in about 2017 unless it secures voter approval of more bond funding or some other source of revenue.

Adams' item on the funding expected to be approved this year is part of CIRM's efforts to make its research blog more lively and newsy. Indeed, unless we are mistaken, it is the first time in the history of the agency that it has laid out its funding plans for a forthcoming year in a single public document.

In her item, Adams also pointed to various locations on the CIRM web site where interested parties can track the agency's affairs.

The changes in the blog are a step in the right direction, laying out not only more information but also racheting up the interest level.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The $3 billion California stem cell agency has handed out 454 grants since its inception in 2004 but what does it all mean?

Stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler took a crack at an unusual analysis a couple of days ago, generating a word cloud from the titles of all the CIRM grants.

Writing on his blog, the UC Davis scientist and CIRM grant recipient said he was surprised by some of the results, including how small the word "induced" was in the cloud considering the hooha over induced pluripotent cells. Knoepfler also wrote,

"I found it fascinating that the next top word was 'differentiation.' As much as we all focus on stem cells in their native state, clearly the differentiation of stem cells is critically important."

Knoepfler used a free, word-cloud forming utility(Wordle) to generate the results, which Amy Adams, CIRM's communications manager, called "cool."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The California Stem Cell Report will be mostly dark during the next two weeks since its editor, yours truly, will be out of Internet range sailing in the Perlas islands south of Panama.

However, we want to let you know that a meeting of the governing board of the California stem cell agency is scheduled for Jan. 17 in San Diego. Also, the Institute of Medicine later this month will hold one of its two public sessions in California to assess the performance of the $3 billion stem cell research effort. The agenda for the Jan. 24-25 meeting in San Francisco had not been posted at the time of this writing. But the IOM said it will be available at least 10 days ahead of the meeting.

The IOM also has not yet filled the spot on the CIRM study panel vacated by David Scadden of Harvard when he resigned last month because of a conflict of interest involving Fate Therapeutics of San Diego.

If you are eager to delve into the details of what the CIRM governing board is up to, you can find the agenda and perhaps additional background information at this location on the CIRM web site when it is posted, probably by Jan. 7. While the meeting is scheduled for San Diego, usually one or two remote locations around the state are available where interested parties can participate. The California Stem Cell Report does plan to cover the meeting live via the Internet audiocast and file reports as warranted.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The California stem cell agency is proposing a $40 million program to set up two stem cell genomic research centers, including possibly one at a for-profit research enterprise.

The plan would augment an existing program in genomics or bioinformatics, according to a CIRM document. The goal is to rapidly build "an effective stem cell genomics infrastructure that will provide a new platform for the application of genomics tools to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine."

The proposal is scheduled to be considered at a meeting of the CIRM directors Science Subcommittee next Wednesday. It will then go to the full CIRM board at its Jan. 17 meeting.

The stem cell agency's proposal said,

"Genomics technologies and the data sets they yield are fast becoming the currency of biology and medicine. The cost of genome sequencing is dropping exponentially, a trend that will soon make genome-scale characterization a practical tool for fundamental studies of stem cell biology and for advancing therapeutic applications. Meanwhile, cell therapeutics are advancing toward clinical trials, and hES and hiPS cells have become the gold standard for studying human cell biology, tissue and organ development and repair, and disease. Combining genomic technologies with stem cell research will accelerate fundamental understanding of human biology, disease mechanisms, tissue engineering and cell therapies...."

The RFA for the proposal would be released in May with board approval of applications in the winter of 2013.

Interested parties can participate in the meeting at locations in San Francisco, Irvine, Oakland, Pleasanton, Duarte, Los Angeles (2), Stanford, Healdsburg and Irvine. Addresses can be found on the agenda for the meeting.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The California stem cell agency plans to hand out $370 million this year, including a whopping $240 million in what it calls its disease team round.

That amounts to $42,237 every hour of every day of 2012.

Amy Adams, CIRM's communications manager, reported the $370 million figure in the CIRM research blog, which she edits. The other rounds of funding for 2012, Adams wrote, include $95 million for early translational research, $35 million for basic biology and $2.2 million for stem cell research by high school students. Those funds would be routed through universities.

So far CIRM has handed out $1.2 billion to 454 recipients in the seven years it has been in business. It is expected to run out of its $3 billion in about 2017 unless it secures voter approval of more bond funding or some other source of revenue.

Adams' item on the funding expected to be approved this year is part of CIRM's efforts to make its research blog more lively and newsy. Indeed, unless we are mistaken, it is the first time in the history of the agency that it has laid out its funding plans for a forthcoming year in a single public document.

In her item, Adams also pointed to various locations on the CIRM web site where interested parties can track the agency's affairs.

The changes in the blog are a step in the right direction, laying out not only more information but also racheting up the interest level.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The $3 billion California stem cell agency has handed out 454 grants since its inception in 2004 but what does it all mean?

Stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler took a crack at an unusual analysis a couple of days ago, generating a word cloud from the titles of all the CIRM grants.

Writing on his blog, the UC Davis scientist and CIRM grant recipient said he was surprised by some of the results, including how small the word "induced" was in the cloud considering the hooha over induced pluripotent cells. Knoepfler also wrote,

"I found it fascinating that the next top word was 'differentiation.' As much as we all focus on stem cells in their native state, clearly the differentiation of stem cells is critically important."

Knoepfler used a free, word-cloud forming utility(Wordle) to generate the results, which Amy Adams, CIRM's communications manager, called "cool."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss