I confess.I am a scientist and I am not an atheist. Uh oh! Am I asking to be burned at the stake….er, over the lab Bunsen burner? Why is there such a persistent myth that scientists must be atheists? Or is it that good scientists must be atheists? And by good, I don’t mean top …
Last week I went to the lab safety training that is required on an annual basis. I believe I’ve gone to it about a half-dozen times now and I know certain parts by heart. However this time there was something brand new. Active shooter training. I have to admit that caught my attention. What is …
American Lab Safety Training Now Includes Active Shooter Prep Read More »
Somewhere out in the ocean there is a container ship steaming from Singapore here to the US and getting close to our shores and on that ship are the first printing copies of my new book, Stem Cells: An Insider’s Guide. At the same time, preparations for the e-book version are just about done. I …
Stem Cells: An Insider’s Guide Book Signing & Talk on October 10th Read More »
Many patients ask me what questions they should be asking doctors and stem cell clinics about possible stem cell therapies. Here is my top 10 list of key items (in both graphic summarized form and detailed text form) that you need to know about and questions about a potential stem cell therapy. Some of these …
Questions List to Bring With You to the Stem Cell Clinic Read More »
On May 13, 2011 I published a post entitled “Friday the 13th for iPS cells”. That day was indeed Friday the 13th and there were some reports in Nature of concerns about iPS cells in terms of immunogenicity and this had followed on the heels of reports on significant genomic and epigenomic warts in iPS …
Stem Cell TGIF on Friday the 13th: My Reactions to the Big Recent Stories Read More »
Need a new liver, pancreas, or other vital organ, then I’ll 3D print one right up for you…that is in about 10 years. My intern Lakshmi did a great job on her guest piece last week on the promise of 3D printing in stem cell-based bioengineering including organ and tissue production. It’s an incredibly exciting area of …
Want to 3D Print Yourself a New Organ? Key Challenges Read More »
What if you could reprogram cells inside of an organism to a different fate and, for instance, make IPS cells? We can, right? But when most of us think about making induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, we imagine it all happening in a little plastic dish in our labs or in our colleague’s labs, not …
Stem cell journal club: dishing on Nature paper on making iPS cells inside mice Read More »
When it comes to science communication or “scicomm”, how are scientists doing these days? Scientists want to stay up to speed on all the latest technological developments whether it is new equipment or new methods. To not stay up to speed on these techno innovations would be a huge mistake as a scientist. You might …
¿Qué son las células madre? (2021 update: note that this post is part of our stem cells not lost in translation project: please see here for 34 other languages. This post also addresses another common question, “what are stem cells for?” in Spanish: para que sirven las celulas madres? El cuerpo humano contiene cientos …
Nominations are now open for the 2013 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. The winner receives $1,000 as well as recognition as a true difference maker and leader in the stem cell field. I found last year that all the finalists received a great deal of positive attention even if they didn’t win and …
Nominations Open for 2013 Stem Cell Person of Year Award Read More »