News & Media

Unraveling the Mystery of Stem Cells

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.

The UC Current

Mark Humayun to receive National Medal of Technology and Innovation

January 12, 2016

President Barack Obama will bestow the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to USC Professor Mark Humayun, who is the director of the California Project to Cure Blindness (CPCB). The CPCB is a collaboration between USC, UC Santa Barbara, Caltech, and The City of Hope to develop a stem cell therapy for age-related macular degeneration. 

USC News

CIRM Funded Clinical Trials for Vision Loss

November 24, 2015

More than seven million people in the US struggle to see. While most are not completely blind they have difficulty with, or simply can’t do, daily tasks most of us take for granted. CIRM has committed more than $100 million to 17 projects trying to solve this unmet medical need. Two of those projects have begun clinical trials testing cell therapies in patients. 

The Stem Cellar

Dr. Sherry Hikita, Former Director of the Stem Cell Core at UC Santa Barbara Pens Award Winning Essay

November 18, 2015

An award-winning essay by Dr. Sherry Hikita, former director of the Stem Cell Core at UC Santa Barbara, and now a research scientist at Asterias Biotherapeutics, describes her motivation to do stem cell research.

The Niche

A New Treatment for Macular Degeneration

September 28, 2015

A clinical trial using stem cell-derived ocular cells for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has been initiated in England. This was a major milestone for the London Project to Cure Blindness, which aims to cure vision loss in people with wet AMD. The organization was founded 10 years ago by UC Santa Barbara’s Peter Coffey, a professor at the campus’s Neuroscience Research Institute. “Cellular therapy has tremendous potential for treating all types of age-related macular degeneration,” said Coffey’s colleague Dennis Clegg, the Wilcox Family Chair in BioMedicine in UCSB’s Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. “Regenerative medicine using stem cells will likely become a major weapon to fight many diseases.” 

The surgery was performed on a patient last month and no complications have arisen to date. The team hopes to determine the patient’s outcome in terms of initial visual recovery by early December.

UCSB Press Release

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