Stem Cell Research and Aging Symposium Highlights

Last week the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, CA held a symposium on stem cell research and aging, which CIRM helped sponsor. The Buck Institute has received more than $36 million in grants from CIRM, including awards to researchers working toward stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease.

Benjamin Blackwell, a research associate at Buck recently wrote about some of the highlights of the meeting for the Buck Institute web site.

“The 2012 Buck Symposium on Stem Cell Research and Aging brought together some of the world’s cutting-edge researchers, but more importantly, it provided a space for the formal convergence of stem cell-based regenerative medicine and aging research.”

He goes on to describe talks covering Huntington’s disease, basic stem cell biology, neural development, Parkinson’s disease and emerging targets for new therapies.

In another report, Kevin Perrott, a PhD candidate wrote:

“It is tremendous to see regenerative medicine targeted directly at the general phenomenon of aging and the underlying biological mechanisms which lead to many degenerative conditions.”

Several people from CIRM and our grantees from other institutions attended the meeting and participated in talks about how stem cells could generate new therapies for diseases of aging.

Our website has a list of all CIRM-funded grants, which you can sort by disease area. These include a wide variety of grants attempting to develop new therapies for age-related diseases.

A.A.