California stem cell grants awarded

The starting gun has fired for 14 research teams, based in California, who now have four years to make good on the therapeutic promise of stem cells.
On 28 October, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) committed US$230 million to teams of basic and clinical researchers aiming to move experimental stem-cell treatments into an investigational new-drug filing with the US Food and Drug Administration. Britain and Canada together paid an additional $43 million for four of the grants, which will include work by researchers in those countries.
One grant will attempt to use induced pluripotent stem cells — which have many of the capabilities of embryonic stem cells but can be tailored to match individual patients — to treat a rare skin disease called epidermolysis bullosa.
Four other awards focus on modifying adult stem cells to treat HIV and brain tumours.
Observers say that the chances of one or more of the experimental therapies making it to the clinic are improved because many of them take similar approaches to techniques that have already been approved, and because many focus on adult stem cells.