Stem cell research | The Stem Cellar | Page 2

I spent the last two days at the annual Washington meeting of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), the advocacy organization that CIRM became a founding member of in 2009. Having been CIRMs representative at that first organizing meeting it has been a pleasure to see the organization mature into an effective advocacy group for our field. It has lived up to its goal of creating a community where all the stakeholders in the field, from academic and industry leaders to patient advocates and investors, can come together in a coordinated front.

ARM and CIRM share the goal of accelerating the development of regenerative therapies to patients with unmet medical needs. The organization also dovetails well with our effort to inform the public about the great hope in the field. To quote ARMs website: ARM also works to increase public understanding of the field and its potential to transform human healthcare.

But that transformation can be fostered or impeded by actions in our nations capital, both regulatory and legislative, the main thrust of the past two days activities.

While the iconic Capitol building is the most recognized footprint of our Congress, it is the House and Senate office buildings that ring three sides of the Capitol where most of the work gets done, like in the Rayburn building, which houses the office of Dianna DeGette, the Colorado congresswoman and champion of regenerative medicine.

ARM members presented three specific proposals for advancing the field to members of congress and their staffs. These would:

Jamie Goldfarb with her son Kai and husband Jeff. Photo courtesy Melanoma Research Alliance

Jamie Goldfarb, who beat back melanoma with the help of a cell-based immune therapy, made a clear and passionate case for the urgency of making it easier to get these therapies to patients at the ARM member dinner Tuesday night:

Enhanced awareness for the power of regenerative medicine means a world of difference. It means less suffering, less pain, less fear, less expense, less hardship, less loss. It also means more hope, more determination, more love, more strength for individuals and for society as a whole. Every person in this room and those organizations you represent are improving lives.

Don Gibbons

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