The Power of Stem Cells | California’s Stem Cell Agency

En Espaol

Stem cells have the potential to treat a wide range of diseases. Here, discover why these cells are such a powerful tool for treating diseaseand what hurdles experts face before new therapies reach patients.

How can stem cells treat disease? What diseases could be treated by stem cell research? How can I learn more about CIRM-funded research in a particular disease? What cell therapies are available right now? When will therapies based on embryonic stem cells become available? What about the therapies that are available overseas? Why does it take so long to create new therapies? How do scientists get stem cells to specialize into different cell types? How do scientists test stem cell therapies? Can't stem cell therapies increase the chances of a tumor? Is there a risk of immune rejection with stem cells? How do scientists grow stem cells in the right conditions?

When most people think about about stem cells treating disease they think of a stem cell transplant.

In a stem cell transplant, embryonic stem cells are first specialized into the necessary adult cell type. Then, those mature cells replace tissue that is damaged by disease or injury. This type of treatment could be used to:

But embryonic stem cell-based therapies can do much more.

Any of these would have a significant impact on human health without transplanting a single cell.

In theory, theres no limit to the types of diseases that could be treated with stem cell research. Given that researchers may be able to study all cell types via embryonic stem cells, they have the potential to make breakthroughs in any disease.

CIRM has created disease pages for many of the major diseases being targeted by stem cell scientists. You can find those disease pages here.

You can also sort our complete list of CIRM awards to see what we've funded in different disease areas.

Read more:
The Power of Stem Cells | California's Stem Cell Agency