News & Media

June 02, 2016

Compared to other mammals, humans have the largest cerebral cortex. A sheet of brain cells that folds in on itself multiple times in order to fit inside the skull, the cortex is the seat of higher functions. It is what enables us to process everything we see and hear and think.

April 15, 2016

“Anti-Aging Medicine” Sounds Vaguely Disreputable, So Serious Scientists Prefer to Speak of “Regenerative Medicine”.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and genome-editing techniques have facilitated manipulation of living organisms in innumerable ways at the cellular and genetic levels, respectively, and will underpin many aspects of regenerative medicine as it continues to evolve. An attitudinal change is also occurring. Experts in regenerative medicine have increasingly begun to embrace the view that comprehensively repairing the damage of aging is a practical and feasible goal.

Researchers — such as Dr. Kathryn Blaschke (pictured), an alumni of the Clegg Lab — involved in the California Project to Cure Blindness at UCSB are developing stem cell therapies for blinding diseases. (Clegg Lab photo)
April 13, 2016

Eye & Vision Care of Santa Barbara will host its fifth annual folf tournament Saturday, May 14, 2016, at Glen Annie Golf Course with proceeds benefiting The California Project to Cure Blindness at UC Santa Barbara, raising awareness and critical funding for stem cell research.  

Dr. Dennis Clegg (l) was welcomed by NEI director Dr. Paul Sieving.
April 08, 2016

Dr. Dennis Clegg recently visited NIH and gave a summary of his efforts with the California Project to Cure Blindness to develop a stem cell-based therapy for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a major cause of blindness in the U.S. His talk was the second installment in the National Eye Institute Audacious Goals Initiative Seminar Series in Neuroregeneration.

March 24, 2016

How do neurons become neurons? They all begin as stem cells, undifferentiated and with the potential to become any cell in the body. Until now, however, exactly how that happens has been somewhat of a scientific mystery. New research conducted by UC Santa Barbara neuroscientists has deciphered some of the earliest changes that occur before stems cells transform into neurons and other cell types. Working with human embryonic stems cells in petri dishes, postdoctoral fellow Jiwon Jang discovered a new pathway that plays a key role in cell differentiation. The findings appear in the journal Cell.

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