The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and the Medical University of Warsaw (MUW), a Polish state institution, entered a collaboration focused on stem cell research.

The institutions are laying the groundwork for potential Polish-Californian research initiatives to advance stem cell therapies through collaborations among innovators in the field. CRIM and MUW said they believe the agreement will make it easier for researchers in California and Poland to obtain joint funding and to exchange expertise in the area of regenerative medicine.

The U.S.-Polish Trade Council presented the idea of this agreement to the leadership of CIRM and to the rector of WMU, Marek Krawczyk, M.D. The collaboration was inked at an event attended by Katarzyna Kacperczyk, deputy minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Poland and Krzysztof Kurzydlowski, director of the National Center for Research and Development and the leadership of CIRM.

“We are committed to supporting Polish researchers to work with California scientists and businesses to further boost Poland’s profile as an innovative and accelerating center for scientific research,” said Piotr Moncarz, consulting professor at Stanford University and co-founder and chairman of the U.S.-Polish Trade Council.

Last month, CIRM took steps toward speeding up the development of effective treatments for patients.

The institute’s president and CEO, C. Randal Mills, Ph.D., unveiled plans for CIRM 2.0, an approach he said could reduce the amount of time it takes to approve funding for a potential therapy heading into a clinical trial.

CIRM’s governing board also voted to award $24 million to set up three new clinical trial centers. As part of the agency’s Alpha Stem Cell Clinics program, the awards of $8 million each go to the City of Hope near Los Angeles, UCLA, and UCSD.

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