I’m here at the World Stem Cell Summit in Florida. I just was in the audience for a great panel discussion on The Role of States in Regulating Stem Cell Therapies. It was contentious but raised almost all of the key questions in this area. There was particularly interesting and vigorous debate between two participants, …
Courthouse News Service is reporting that Texas stem cell company Celltex is being sued by Biostar/RNLBio. This is big news as RNLBio was running the Celltex clinic to expand stem cells. Assuming the Courthouse News report is accurate, it suggests that Celltex and their key partner are in the middle of a potentially ugly breakup. …
Celltex & RNLBio/Biostar: breaking up is hard to do? Read More »
George Daley stem cell field SWAT analysis. He argues that the biggest threats to the stem cell field are premature and illegitimate clinical applications. He stresses need for innovation including by surgeons but cautions strongly against rushing therapies.
Yesterday was my 3-year anniversary of surgery for prostate cancer. I’m doing great in long-term remission and hopeful it stays that way. You never know. Knock on wood. Over the years, as both a cancer researcher and patient, I’ve found myself frustrated with the way the media fails at reporting on supposed risky behaviors for …
Media’s crazy cocktails on cancer: today’s case of whole milk and soda Read More »
There’s a new paper out this week in Cell from the Zaret lab that is very exciting. In this manuscript, Facilitators and Impediments of the Pluripotency Reprogramming Factors’ Initial Engagement with the Genome, Zaret’s team explores how Myc and Oct4, Sox2, and Klf4 (OSK) behave at the genomic level during cellular reprogramming. What are the most …
Review of the new Zaret Cell paper on Myc & OSK in cellular reprogramming Read More »
Supposedly there is a type of normal adult stem cell that intrinsically possesses many of the same properties as embryonic stem cells (ESCs). No reprogramming needed. No blastocysts needed. These reportedly amazing cells, called Very Small Embryonic-Like Stem Cells (VSELs), can in theory be isolated from umbilical cord blood (UCB) or even bone marrow. Yet …
I did a poll of what people think Nasa’s big announcement that they said is coming about a history-making discovery of the Mars Rover. The results are above. The top two answers, adding up to nearly 60% of responses, represent very high expectations as both would suggest life has existed on Mars. If you take …
What did Nasa Mars Rover Curiosity find? Interesting poll results Read More »
The Vegas trial of Dr. Ralph Conti, accused of dangerous stem cell fraud, is going on and reportedly some of the testimony is astonishing in terms of the attitudes of point-of-care, for profit stem cell clinic disregard for their patients. The doctor is quoted that in terms of the stem cell treatments of human patients …
The field of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) has really shaken up science over the last half dozen years reversing our notion that differentiated cells are stuck in that fate, when in reality they are plastic and can “turn back the clock” to become embryonic stem cell-like cells. Now we have an iPSC paper in Nature, …
Surprising human genomic mosaicism means not all your cells have the same DNA Read More »