[Edmonton Journal] The medical benefits of stem cells may lie in their “healing juice” by-products, says an University of Alberta pediatric asthma researcher.
Dr. Bernard Thébaud believes the by-products of mesenchymal stem cells — found in umbilical cord tissue and with known anti-inflammatory characteristics — could possibly heal lungs inflamed by chronic [...]

[USA Today] An international conference opens in Rome Wednesday devoted to medical applications of adult stem cells.  “We see tremendous potential in these cells,” says Vatican spokesman Tomasz Trafny, in a phone interview.
The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops has been a prominent critic of embryonic stem cell research in the United States. The Vatican conference will [...]

[Bloomberg]- Research using human embryonic stem- cell lines approved under President Barack Obama is accelerating, boosting a scientific field that’s been dogged by legal and political threats.
The U.S. allowed 37 embryonic stem-cell lines for taxpayer- funded research in June, the most of any month this year, according to the National Institutes of Health. The total [...]

[LA Times]- Reporting from Sacramento— California’s stem cell research agency says it needs billions more taxpayer dollars to deliver on promised cures to major diseases. Yet at a time when other departments are cutting back spending, the agency recently agreed to pay its new boss one of the highest salaries in state government.
The 50-person grant-making [...]

[Denver Post]- U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette on Wednesday unveiled her latest legislative effort to support embryonic-stem-cell research.
The Denver Democrat used Craig Hospital, which is internationally acclaimed for its rehab facilities for people with spinal- cord and brain injuries, as the backdrop to introduce the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act of 2011, which she is co-sponsoring [...]

[Reuters]- France looked set on Thursday to maintain its curbs on human embryonic stem cell research after the conservative government fought off a parliamentary bid to liberalize the country’s bioethics law.
The National Assembly voted to uphold the curbs in the second reading of the new bioethics law. Conservative legislators and the Roman Catholic Church had [...]

[San Diego Union-Tribune]- International Stem Cell enrolled the first of what it hopes will be at least 15 U.S. donors of unfertilized human eggs that will be used by the Carlsbad company to produce a vast bank of stem cell lines for clinical trials in humans, the biotechnology firm said Thursday.
The company plans to use [...]

[Business Times]- StemCells Inc. will discontinue an early-stage clinical trial in Batten disease because it couldn’t find enough eligible patients with the rare disease.
Batten disease, also known as neuronal ceroid lipfuscinosis or NCL, is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder in children.
Palo Alto-based StemCells in 2009 completed a Phase I safety trial in six patients with advances [...]

[NPR] ROBERT SIEGEL, host:  In 1978, the phrase in-vitro fertilization was something the experts said.�The rest of the world spoke of test-tube babies. Newspaper columnists and editorial writers invoked Aldous Huxley’s image of baby hatcheries in his dystopian novel “Brave New World.”
Jeffrey Kahn directs the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota Medical School. [...]

 British Scientist’s Work Has Enabled the Birth of Four Million Test-Tube Babies
[WSJ] Robert Edwards, a feisty British embryologist who fundamentally transformed human procreation, received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine Monday for the development of clinical in vitro fertilization.
“By a brilliant combination of basic and applied medical research, [Dr.] Edwards overcame one technical hurdle after [...]