UCI has been very involved with stem cell research 
and it’s kind of sad that they went through battles to get the approval to start the stem cell trial for spinal cord damage. In that situation it was maybe a little too late as Geron the company who had been backing and pushing the program announced they were withdrawing from Stem Cell research and would work more with oncology research.
Geron To Focus on Cancer Programs Discontinues Internal Development of Spinal Stem Cell Programs-66 Jobs Go Away–Biotech Gets Shot in the Foot With Funding While the Ridiculously Valued Chase for Social Algorithms Intensifies
Geron Gets FDA Approval To Resume Stem-Cell Study - Spinal Cord Injuries - Go UC Irvine! But the good new today has to do with the Alzheimer's study that restored memory in mice and will lead to human trials. I hope we don’t have issues here as this study is using stem cells from human fetuses and we all know what that could bring about. The next move now is for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to approve a grant to lead to human trials to continue the research. BD
Human neural stem cells restored memory in mice with brain symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease, UC Irvine scientists reported Tuesday, opening the door to eventual treatment for human sufferers.
The announcement, made at an Alzheimer's science conference in Vancouver, involves versatile though still largely mysterious neural stem cells grown in the lab by StemCells Inc., of Newark, Calif.
The cells, researchers at UCI and elsewhere have shown, 
can become many types of cells once injected into the body – restoring limb movement in mice with crushed spines, halting blindness in rats and, now, improving memory and brain function in mice bred to exhibit the kinds of impairment seen in Alzheimer's.
The cells are derived from the donated brain tissue of surgically aborted fetuses, McGlynn said, and can grow readily in the laboratory for use in a variety of scientific settings.
"You can grow up billions of cells in a cell bank and keep them in cryopreserved form," he said.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/alzheimer-364183-stem-cells.html
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