by Amy Adams on February 7, 2011 at 12:44PM | 0 comments
The LA Times has a timely story in the week leading up to Valentine's day summarizing the role of stem cells in mending a broken heart. There's been a lot of talk - and a lot of money invested -- over the past few years pushing bone marrow stem cells as a tool for repairing damage after heart attack.
by Amy Adams on November 17, 2010 at 9:29AM | 0 comments
Yesterday CIRM grantee Bruce Conklin gave his top four reasons why embryonic stem cells are so valuable and why federal funding for the work needs to be able to continue. Conklin, who is Senior Investigator Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease and professor at UCSF, studies heart rhythm defects by creating iPS cells from people genetically predisposed to have those defects, then maturing those into heart cells in a dish.
by Amy Adams on November 10, 2010 at 10:51AM | 0 comments
A story by Nick Wade in Monday's New York Times rubbed some scientists the wrong way - and I must admit the piece was not too popular around CIRM headquarters.
Wade equated research funding with picking stocks. His idea is that a broad portfolio is bound to include some winners (he attributes this approach to the NIH and NSF) whereas attempts to only buy the big winners can produce a risky portfolio (an approach he attributes to CIRM).
by Amy Adams on December 9, 2009 at 12:48PM | 0 comments
The 400th paper published with CIRM funding also marks the five-year anniversary of the first CIRM board meeting (the actual date was December 17, 2004). The paper, by researchers at the Gladstone Institute and the University of California, San Francisco, illustrates how far the field has come in the five years since the organization's inception, and in the three years since the organization has been funding research.
by Amy Adams on July 5, 2009 at 12:10PM | 0 comments
Researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease have identified two molecules, called microRNAs, that push early heart cells to mature into the smooth muscle cells that line blood vessels. These same molecules also control when those smooth muscle cells divide to repair damage or in diseases such as cancer or atherosclerosis, which both involve unhealthy blood vessel growth. The two microRNAs, miR-145 and miR-143, are abundant in the primitive heart cells of prenatal mice, leading those cells to differentiate into various mature heart and aorta cells.
by Amy Adams on February 17, 2009 at 12:03PM | 0 comments
Researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease may have discovered why developing heart muscles cells multiply in numbers while the adult counterparts do not. This finding could lead to therapies that roll back the clocks on heart muscle cells after injury such as a heart attack, allowing those cells to multiply and repair the damage. The researchers specifically looked at the role of cells called fibroblasts, which are packed in the heart amidst the muscle cells.
by Amy Adams on November 12, 2008 at 11:46AM | 0 comments
Researchers at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease found a genetic factor that helps in the earliest stages of heart development as the primitive tube loops around on itself and forms the separate chambers. This factor -- a short relative of DNA called microRNA -- has an identical counterpart in humans, leading the researchers to believe that their work in fish is likely to relate directly to human heart development.