Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world, affecting more than 80 million people. However, because the disease remains largely asymptomatic as it progresses, researchers estimate that more than 50 percent of individuals are unaware that they’re afflicted until it’s too late.
In a push to further speed clinical development of emerging stem cell therapies, Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health System was named today one of three new “alpha clinics” by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state’s stem cell agency.
Richard Kronick, PhD, a health policy expert and faculty member at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has been elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences and widely regarded as one of the nation’s most respected scientific society.
UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center is pushing therapeutic stem cell-based science out of the laboratory and closer to real-world medical applications. The unprecedented trials involve potential therapies for spinal cord injuries, Type 1 diabetes and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a new fusion protein found in approximately 15 percent of secondary glioblastomas or brain tumors. The finding offers new insights into the cause of this cancer and provides a therapeutic target for personalized oncologic care.
Long assumed to be destructive to tissues and cells, “free radicals” generated by the cell’s mitochondria—the energy producing structures in the cell—are actually beneficial to healing wounds. That’s the conclusion of biologists at UC San Diego who discovered that “reactive oxygen species”—chemically reactive molecules containing oxygen, such as peroxides, commonly referred to as free radicals—are necessary for the proper healing of skin wounds in the laboratory roundworm C. elegans.
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