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Dr. Joshua Hare believes medicine is close to a goal long thought to be impossible: healing the human heart. The way to get there? Stem cells. ''These could be as big as antibiotics were in the last century,'' says Hare, the researcher Read More...
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CANNES, France -- The entertainment industry attracts all sorts of unusual investors, but the people behind a new movie premiering at the Cannes Film Festival couldn't be further removed from the Hollywood scene: They are Kansas doctors eager to tell Read More...
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As for New York, New Jersey and California, Massachusetts continues to move towards large-scale funding of stem cell research from public monies: "Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday unveiled a $1.25 billion proposal intended to help the state maintain its status as a pre-eminent place for stem cell research and other life sciences. The money would provide grants for university and hospital scientists, establish special research centers to make their work faster and more efficient, and train workers for biotechnology businesses. It would also establish the first stem cell bank, a repository of all the stem cell lines created in Massachusetts laboratories, which would serve as a kind of stem cell lending library to scientists around the world. ... Mr. Patrick's plan involves $1 billion in state money over 10 years, some borrowed through bond issues, plus $250 million in matching money from private business." Nothing like massive centralization to remove the accountability and incentives that lead to efficient use of funds - not to mention the terrible waste of resources spent on fighting for control of the purse.
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09stem.html?pagewanted=print
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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(From Science). Following on from my last note on the topic, it looks like public funds will be directed to stem cell research in New York: "On the night of 31 March, minutes before the beginning of the state's 2008 fiscal year, legislators passed a budget that includes $100 million for stem cell research. The money will be administered by a new entity set up within the state health department. In addition, for the next 10 years, the state will provide up to $50 million annually for stem cell research from a fund created from the sale of state-run insurance plans to private entities. In addition to [this], stem cell supporters are optimistic that the legislature will appropriate an additional $50 million a year. ... The law calls for the establishment of a 13-member Empire State Stem Cell Board to be appointed by the governor, which will administer the new Empire State Stem Cell Fund for research in the state. ... the board will set up panels of outside scientists - most likely not from New York - to review the grants."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/402/4
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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By way of following up on a recently noted article on funding for embryonic stem cell research, here are comments by Ronald Bailey from Reason Magazine: "Instead of being modeled on drug development, perhaps embryonic stem cell research will follow a development path more like that blazed by researchers in assisted reproduction. Rather than being hampered by a paucity of federal research funding perhaps embryonic stem cell research will flourish just as research on assisted reproduction techniques (ART) has. Arguably in vitro fertilization research has proceeded rapidly because of, not in spite of, essentially no federal funding. ... Without intrusive federal oversight and regulation IVF researchers have been able to deploy new techniques such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, and sperm sorting for sex selection very shortly after they have been developed. Research has stopped in promising areas of ART only when the Feds decide to get involved." It should be no surprise that work is more effective per dollar spent when the funders have a far greater, pressing interest in the outcome, and when there is less regulation to raise costs to no good end.
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.reason.com/news/show/118069.html
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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If you like to see how the sausage is made, Seeking Alpha takes a look inside Geron, a company representative of the messy business of developing the latest regenerative medicine and cancer therapies: "Geron has two telomerase-based cancer drugs in human trials, though both are early stage. For metastatic prostate cancer, the company is injecting telomerase into patients, hoping to provoke a more aggressive immune response - a therapeutic vaccine. ... On the stem cell front, Geron is testing GRNOPC1 to treat spinal cord injuries. The drug was given to rats with injuries that prevented them from using their legs, and GRNOPC1 helped them regain control of their legs. ... A second drug, GRNIC1, uses embryonic stem cell-derived islet clusters treatment to treat diabetes. ... Geron plans to begin its initial human testing of the drug in 2007 ... GRNCM1, the third stem cell based drug candidate, is a potential treatment for myocardial infarction."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://biotech.seekingalpha.com/article/23090
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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(From RxPG News). Branches of the Indian government continue to move public funds into stem cell research: "A sum of [US$11 million] has been allocated for the proposed stem cell research centre. About 150 scientists from Pune's Cell Science Research Centre will be engaged in research and application. ... Admiral Singh, also chairman of Military Medicine Association, said funding would be made available to make it Asia's biggest state-of-the-art stem cell research centre as this was the future of medical treatment/therapy for various diseases and India could not lag behind. He said the longevity of humans could also be increased through stem cell treatment. ... It will be the futuristic treatment replacing drug therapy and surgery. Through stem cell treatment, heart diseases, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, eye and muscle disease and various other diseases can be cured."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.rxpgnews.com/india/Military-college-to-set-up-stem-cell-research-centre_9733.shtml
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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Via the Washington Post, a brief update on the process of state funding for stem cell research in New Jersey: "the state Legislature on Thursday agreed to borrow $270 million to build labs and pay for related programs. Gov. Jon S. Corzine said he looked forward to signing the bill ... The legislation provides $150 million for a stem cell research institute at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, $50 million for a biomedical research center at Rutgers-Camden, $50 million for an adult stem cell research facility at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, $10 million for the Garden State Cancer Center in Belleville, and $10 million for the Elie Katz Umbilical Cord Blood Program in Allendale."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/14/AR2006121401817_pf.html
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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MSNBC looks at the funding situation for the California Insitute for Regenerative Medicine: "Voters passed Proposition 71 in 2004 to create the institute and give it authority to borrow and spend $3 billion over 10 years. Lawsuits, however, have prevented it from going to the Wall Street bond market for its money. So the institute will fund the next rounds of grant-giving with a $150 million loan from the state and another $31 million in loans from philanthropic organizations ... A grant-review committee led by 15 scientists from outside of California last week sifted through 232 applications from state researchers vying for 30 grants worth a combined $24 million. Many of the grants will go to scientists getting into stem cell research for the first time and will be formally awarded in February. In March, another round of 25 grants worth about $80 million will go to established stem cell scientists."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15992709/
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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A slice of research life from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: "Quietly but steadily, under the watchful eye of some of the nation's top scientists, hundreds of technicians and researchers isolate cells and scrutinize data in 18 immense laboratories at the University of Rochester Medical Center. They're teasing out the secrets of stem cells, the building blocks of the body, in the hope of finding cures for diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes and multiple sclerosis. ... One UR scientist, neurologist Dr. Steven A. Goldman, recently had a breakthrough, then a setback, in Parkinson's treatment. Yet he might be close to finding a treatment for some neurodegenerative diseases. Details of the daily work of researchers such as Goldman are largely unknown to the public, if only because the science is so complex and arcane. But shining a spotlight on his lab may improve understanding of the research that could one day change medicine."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061126/NEWS01/611260318/1002/NEWS
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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