Finding on ‘Evil’ Stem Cells Boosts Stem Cell Agency PR

By Dr. Matthew Watson

The California stem cell agency, which
is struggling to spread the word about its good deeds, made a bit of
progress last week when it was praised – not once but three times –
on a widely followed national media outlet.

Jill Helms, Stanford photo

The PR bonus occurred on Science
Friday, the NPR program that is a favorite on PBS radio stations
around the country. It has 1.4 million listeners and 600,000 podcast downloads each week.

Jill Helms, a surgery professor at
Stanford and a specialist in regenerative medicine, was the guest
last Friday. She talked about what Science Friday host Ira
Flatow called a "paradigm-shifting" finding that
cholestrol and fat are not the likely villains in clogging arteries.
Instead the villain is a stem cell – an evil one.

While evil stem cells are not a matter that is pushed by the California stem cell agency, Helms said her
collaboration began as a result of a CIRM-sponsored meeting in Japan.
Although she and lead researcher Song Li, an associate professor of bioengineering at UC Berkeley, work nearly within shouting distance,
they had never met. She said,

Zhenyu Tang (at microscope) examines vascular stem
cells in culture along with Aijun Wang (left) and Song Li.
UC Berkeley/Zoey Huang photo

"Even though he works just across
the (San Francisco) Bay from me - I met him at a meeting in Japan
that was sponsored by the California Institute for Regenerative
Medicine, or CIRM, and they fund a lot of stem cell research in
California."

Later she said,

"I will tell you that cancer is
certainly a disease that looks very much like a stem cell gone out of
control. And so if we understand what normally regulates a stem
cell's behavior, then we gain some crucial insights into what
regulates maybe a cancer cell's behavior. It's that kind of approach
that I think that CIRM is largely funding initiatives to try to
target human diseases, the big ones, and the ones that make us all
sort of quake in our shoes, and attempt to come up with new
therapies."

And then still later, she said,

"Most basic scientists that work
in stem cells and in the area of stem cell are trying as hard as
possible to move this into translational therapies, things that can
be used in humans. And, of course, CIRM, our funding institution, is
very adamant about this being the trajectory. So, you know, I'll be
taking a stab at it about five to seven years. I think that the
ability to rapidly screen existing drugs for their ability to target
this cell population is why we think that it might have a shorter
course to getting into humans."

We should note that Helms has not
received a grant from the stem cell agency nor is she even one of the
featured players in CIRM's many videos. Song Li does have a $1.3million grant from the agency.

The three-pronged push by Helms is just
what the agency needs if it is to sell its efforts, which are almost
totally ignored by the mainstream media. However, the Science Friday
audience consists almost entirely of "true believers" in
the virtues of science and research. If CIRM is to accomplish its
PR-communications-marketing goals it also has to reach the unwashed
heathens, who are, however, unlikely converts. But most importantly,
CIRM needs to persuade fence-sitters. All of which will require a
long, hard and sometimes frustrating campaign.

One final note: The UC Berkley press release on the research said it was supported by cash from CIRM, the
NIH and the United States Army. According to CIRM's research blog post
on Li's work, his team included two researchers who were
part of Berkeley’s CIRM-funded training program.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss