Enabling allogeneic therapies: CIRM-funded strategies for immune tolerance and immune evasion.

A major goal for the field of regenerative medicine is to enable the safe and durable engraftment of allogeneic tissues and organs. In contrast to autologous therapies, allogeneic therapies can be produced for many patients, thus reducing costs and increasing availability. However, the need to overcome strong immune system barriers to engraftment poses a significant biological challenge to widespread adoption of allogeneic therapies.

Proceedings: Regenerative Medicine for Lung Diseases: A CIRM Workshop Report.

The mission of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is to accelerate treatments to patients with unmet medical needs. In September 2016, CIRM sponsored a workshop held at the University of California, Los Angeles, to discuss regenerative medicine approaches for treatment of lung diseases and to identify the challenges remaining for advancing such treatments to the clinic and market approval. Workshop participants discussed current preclinical and clinical approaches to regenerative medicine in the lung, as well as the biology of lung stem cells and the role of stem cells in the etiology of various lung diseases.

Challenging Regeneration to Transform Medicine.

Unlabelled: The aging population in the U.S. and other developed countries has led to a large increase in the number of patients suffering from degenerative diseases.

Proceedings: moving toward cell-based therapies for liver disease.

Despite available medical therapy and organ transplantation, a significant unmet medical need remains for the treatment of liver failure, end-stage liver disease, and liver-based inborn errors of metabolism. Liver cell transplantation has the potential to address this need; however, the field is in search of a suitable cell therapeutic. The ability to reproducibly generate a well-characterized source of engraftable and functional liver cells has continued to be a challenge.

Conserved role of SIRT1 orthologs in fasting-dependent inhibition of the lipid/cholesterol regulator SREBP.

The sterol regulatory element-binding protein (SREBP) transcription factor family is a critical regulator of lipid and sterol homeostasis in eukaryotes. In mammals, SREBPs are highly active in the fed state to promote the expression of lipogenic and cholesterogenic genes and facilitate fat storage. During fasting, SREBP-dependent lipid/cholesterol synthesis is rapidly diminished in the mouse liver; however, the mechanism has remained incompletely understood.

A regulatory cytoplasmic poly(A) polymerase in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Messenger RNA regulation is a critical mode of controlling gene expression. Regulation of mRNA stability and translation is linked to controls of poly(A) tail length. Poly(A) lengthening can stabilize and translationally activate mRNAs, whereas poly(A) removal can trigger degradation and translational repression.