Change is in the air for the California stem cell agency, CIRM. It has a new President, Randy Mills, and CIRM is soon going to be like a new agency too. I recently did an interview with Mills that illuminates some of the big changes that are imminent. I also asked him what his favorite …
Radical Vision for CIRM Future: Interview with New Prez Mills Read More »
Inspired by DrugMonkeyBlog, I have gone through and listed the first ipscell.com blog posts of each of the 12 months of 2014. It makes for a surprising summary of the year. Think of it as the 12 months of stem cell blog mass (12 days of Christmas image from Wikipedia). Just for fun, I’ve included both …
The FDA has issued a warning letter to Cell Vitals, a company that manufactures and sells stem cell face creams. Cell Vitals is apparently owned by Irene Hardy according to the letter and the business has an address in Irvine, CA. A screenshot from their website is shown below. The stem cell creams sold by Cell Vitals …
FDA warning letter to stem cell face creams maker Read More »
Cloning of animals is becoming a big, global business, and Hwang Woo-Suk is a major player here. Hwang Woo-Suk and animal cloning It turns out that this reproductive cloning of animals goes well beyond making duplicates of pets for sentimental customers at $100,000 a copy. Cloning of livestock by agribusinesses is becoming fairly common. Some …
Cloning Factory in China Has Familiar Partner: Hwang Woo-Suk Read More »
It’s been a seemingly rather quiet year on the regulatory front in the US when it comes to direct-to-consumer stem cell interventions even as the number of dubious stem cell clinics continues to skyrocket. I requested an interview with the FDA to cover the key pressing issues in this arena. I want to thank the …
New Interview with FDA on Key Stem Cell Regulatory Issues & Its Own Research Read More »
What was the biggest stem cell story of the year for 2014? Every year I post my view on what was the biggest stem cell event of the year. You can see picks for past years including human therapeutic cloning (production of nuclear transfer human ES cells) for 2013, the strangest stem cell story of …
Post-publication (post-pub) review is arguably one of the most innovative developments in scientific publishing in the past few years, including at the site PubPeer. An illustration of the widespread influence of post-pub review is the fact that PubMed recently started allowing readers to post comments about any paper. Post-pub review drove the rapid debunking of the …
Will Lawsuit Against PubPeer Chill Post-Pub Review? Read More »
As a scientist blogger, I have a lot to be thankful for as Thanksgiving approaches so I wanted to say “Thanks.” First, I want to thank the readers of this blog who make it a reality. If no one reads a blog, then pretty much it doesn’t exist for all intents and purposes. Second, I …
After about a week of polling on views of shirtgate (also known as shirtstorm), the results are in and there are some pretty clear findings. The poll sought to measure people’s views of Dr. Matt Taylor’s wearing of a shirt covered in depictions of scantily clad woman including some with guns during a TV interview …
Shirtgate / Shirtstorm poll results point to a polar community Read More »
I’m often asked, “How can I help people ‘get’ stem cells with an analogy?” What are the best stem cell analogies? Here are the ones I’ve thought up that resonated most powerfully in my public outreach including with kids. Stem cells as Transformers. They are cool. They can transform into all different kinds of things. …
Best analogies for stem cells for public outreach Read More »