Sanford Stem Cell Institute

10/08/2026

https://bit.ly/4athejg This is your last call to RSVP for the annual Sanford Stem Cell Institute Symposium, Oct. 15-16, featuring recent breakthroughs in regenerative medicine. Virtual attendees may select from specific topical sessions throughout the two-day event, where academics, medical providers and members of the space and biotech industries convene to discuss the latest across stem cell and biological sciences. Virtual registration is complimentary. View the schedule and register here: https://bit.ly/4athejg.

09/22/2026

🌿 On any given day in the Amazon rainforest, one might look up to the sky and find origami robots raining down, fluttering through openings in the dense canopy of trees. 🦜

🌳 A veritable army of stealthy soldiers, the quarter-sized robots quickly scatter and embark on their mission: Use artificial intelligence to locate particular plants known only to locals and signal when they do. Once an alert is sent, members of the Huni Kuin community efficiently collect the living specimens and responsibly replant them, transporting them to the Federal University of Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil, for study. 🤖

🌺 For the robots, it’s back to business and on to the next discovery until they reach the end of their useful lives and biodegrade. For UC San Diego neuroscientist Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, it’s back to the lab on California's coast to review incoming data from his research partners in South America. 🧫

🛰️ Muotri serves as director of SSCI’s Integrated Space Stem Cell Orbital Research Center. Read more about his far-reaching, impactful — even otherworldly — work in this year’s Discoveries magazine here: https://bit.ly/4hF8FGa 🌌

H/t UC San Diego Health, UC San Diego School of Medicine, UC San Diego

09/15/2026

These glowing green strands are human neurons growing inside a brain organoid, a tiny 3D model scientists use to study how the brain develops, ages, and changes in disease.

In a new Upward story, we explore how researchers at UC San Diego and the National Stem Cell Foundation are sending brain organoids and neural models to the ISS to study disease-relevant changes linked to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Rett syndrome, and other neurological conditions.

Read more: https://ow.ly/L0BH50ZHoA1


National Stem Cell Foundation UC San Diego

09/14/2026

🎉 Today we’re celebrating the recent announcement that UC San Diego ranks No. 4 among U.S. public universities — and 20th in the world — according to Shanghai Ranking, due in part to exceptional faculty like SSCI Director Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD, and their groundbreaking research.

🥂 Read more about the rankings, what sets UC San Diego apart and Jamieson’s work here: https://bit.ly/4h6zem6

H/t UC San Diego School of Medicine

09/09/2026

Our latest reGEN Podcast 🎙️ episode features Mark Walters, MD, and his work specializing in blood and bone marrow transplants for children with blood disorders and cancer. Walters also serves as the program director of the UCSF California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Alpha Clinic. Watch here https://bit.ly/4wYfA1t, or listen 🎧 where you find your podcasts.

Mark Walters, MD, is the Jordan Family Director of Bone Marrow Tran...

08/27/2026

🚀 https://bit.ly/4zH5y7t You might have heard about efforts to manufacture organs in space. But what about efforts to manufacture medicine in space — and why would we want to? Learn about pioneers in this burgeoning field — including our director, Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD — and their cutting-edge work in this exciting Science piece, published today. 💊

🚨 Spoiler alert: The article mentions rebecsinib, Jamieson's experimental anti-cancer drug currently in clinical trial at UC San Diego. It was tested on tumor organoids aboard the International Space Station. 🛰️

H/t UC San Diego School of Medicine, NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

08/20/2026

https://bit.ly/3U46jaE Researchers led by our Ludmil B. Alexandrov, PhD, have discovered a previously overlooked pattern of DNA mutations in colorectal cancer. Known as a mutational signature, it was identified in three independent datasets representing nearly 3,000 tumors. Read more about the discovery, fueled by Cancer Grand Challenges, at the link above.

H/t UC San Diego School of Medicine UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

Researchers identified a previously overlooked pattern of DNA mutations in colorectal cancer. The pattern had been detected in large cancer-genome datasets before, but researchers had interpreted it as a combination of other, already known mutation patterns.

08/19/2026

Our latest reGEN Podcast 🎙️ episode features U.S. Space Force 🚀 veteran David Beck and his personal journey from life-saving donor to cancer survivor. He now serves as a patient advocate and principal at Space Technologies, Ltd. Watch here https://bit.ly/4ggIkfB or listen 🎧 where you find your podcasts.

This episode of the reGEN Podcast features United States Space Forc...

08/18/2026

🚀 Interested in the incredible space research performed here at UC San Diego — and 250 miles above, on the International Space Station? 🛰️

If so, your next destination should be space.ucsd.edu.

👩‍🚀 Maybe you're fascinated by the harnessing of space's unique environment to benefit human health — astronaut or otherwise. Perhaps you love glimpsing the latest mind-bending shots of the Phantom Galaxy. Or are asteroid collision early warnings of utmost importance to you? Whatever your cosmic curiosity, the site has you covered. 🪐

H/t UC San Diego School of Medicine UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Scripps Institution of Oceanography

08/11/2026

https://bit.ly/4wpS11A "While the rest of us are distracted by large language models and AI agents," researchers like SSCI's Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, are "going straight to the source of intelligence, cultivating living neurons and teaching themselves to program them with electrical signals and hits of dopamine," WIRED's Clarie L. Evans writes in her latest piece, "AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive."

Read more about the cutting-edge research of Muotri, a brain organoid pioneer, and how it's fueling the coming OI (organoid intelligence) — not AI — revolution, at the link above.

H/t UC San Diego School of Medicine