Photo illustration of a doctor analyzing stem cells. (Image: CI Photos, via Shutterstock)California’s stem cell agency, created as a way to develop revolutionary cures based on human embryonic stem cells, has awarded $316 million over the last 12 months, most of it backing a type of therapy that was not even on the agency’s radar when it was created in 2004.
Evangelina, a former 'bubble baby,' plays inside a giant plastic bubble. (Photo: Stem Cellar Report, CIRM)Little Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro is more than a poster girl for the $12 billion California stem cell agency. She embodies a big bet by the agency that its efforts will conquer at least a few of the terrible diseases that are currently incurable. In the case of Evie, as the eight-year-old is known, she was born with what has come to be described as the bubble baby syndrome, a rare genetic mutation that crippled her immune system to the point that she would have died if left untreated.
Information in many languages outside a California voting place. (Photo: Underawesternsky, via Shutterstock)As California counties continue to process mail-in and provisional ballots, Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, has taken a substantial lead over Marshall Tuck in the race for California’s state superintendent of public instruction.
An image of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket over Los Angeles, December 2017. (Photo: Philip Pilosian)Will you (OK, your grandchildren) someday take a vacation jaunt to Mars? Or maybe move there permanently? You will if California’s 0utside-the-box-thinker Elon Musk and his competitors have their way. Non-passenger commercial space activity is already big business. Musk’s SpaceX company launches satellites into orbit, charging commercial customers $62 million per launch to as much as $20 million more for more complicated tasks, such as resupplying the International Space Station.
Stem cell research in what's known as the "PCR strip." (Image: Science Photo, via Shutterstock)The California stem cell agency yesterday handed out $75 million, doubling down on a couple of efforts to develop a stem cell therapy and a stem cell tool, plus funding an expansion of its Alpha Clinic network with two new, Northern California sites. The awards bring to $2.34 billion that the nearly 13-year-old agency has committed to stem cell research.
A view across the rail years of downtown San Diego. (Photo: Welcomia, via Shutterstock)Calpensions: In another ruling allowing pension cuts, an appeals court last week overturned a state labor board ruling that a voter-approved San Diego pension reform was invalid because the city declined to bargain the issue with labor unions.
Young David Vetter, who died from severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) in the 1990s. (Photo: Biotechnology and Society)California’s stem cell agency is ready to award $20 million on Thursday to a UCLA researcher to assist in his 30-year search for a widely available cure for what has come to be known as the “bubble boy” syndrome– severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID).