Month: May 2017

SCOPE 2017: learn about stem cells in your own language

stem-cells-languages

I’ve been working on a stem cells in many languages outreach program I call the Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Outreach Program for Education (SCOPE). The idea behind SCOPE is to make available on the Internet a basic page of facts about stem cells in as many languages as possible. Our motto could be articulated as “Stem …

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Risky Pro-Stem Cell Clinic Bills Still Alive in Texas Legislature

Texas-Representative-Drew-Springer

The Texas Legislature is considering three risky bills that would give free rein to stem cell clinics to profit big time off of patients by selling unproven and unapproved “stem cell treatments” that have little if any science behind them. I call one of these bills “Right to Profit” for clinics, which if these became …

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New Yamanaka interview gives key insights into future of IPS cells

Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka, the first to produce induced pluripotent stem cells

Where is the field of IPS cells going and how will this impact the overall field of stem cell-based regenerative medicine? Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka, the discoverer of IPS cells, gave a really interesting recent interview to Nikkei that provides some fascinating insights into the future of this exciting technology that is now more than a decade …

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3 Dangerous Texas Bills Would Boost Stem Cell Clinics

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The Calexit and Texit state secession campaigns for California and Texas to leave the union, which are linked to Russian President Putin, are never going to be successful. However, if some Texas lawmakers and stem cell clinics there have their way, Texas would take a big step away from the rest of us on the stem cell …

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What is hardest thing we do with our brains in a lifetime?

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What’s the hardest thing we ever do with our brains on average during a lifetime? Our brains are wonderful things that some have called the most complicated structures in the known universe, but what exactly do we do with them? Do we tax them fully during our lives? The old cliché that we only use …

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Big change for stem cell field with FDA quickly issuing RMATs

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The 21st Century Cures Act has some important regenerative medicine language in it. One part of that was attempting to accelerate FDA review of promising investigation regenerative medicine therapies. The mechanism for this was a new designation called Regenerative Advanced Therapy, now renamed Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) Designation. I don’t think anyone was sure …

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Burt Northwestern Stem Cell MS Trial Part 3: Funding, Patient Perspectives, & the Future

Stem-cells-for-MS-trial-concerns-e1493137263166

Today’s post is the last of a three-part series on the Burt stem cell trials at Northwestern. This piece is focused on funding and the future of the trial, and also includes perspectives from patients. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here, which focused on issues related to potential encouragement of patient fundraising that unintentionally releases …

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President Mills Leaving, CIRM Needs New Leader to Navigate Future Challenges

Randy-Mills

CIRM announced today that its President and CEO, Randy Mills, is soon leaving for a new job as President of the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match in Minnesota. Update: Dr. Maria Millan, the CIRM Vice President of Therapeutics, will be its leader starting July 1 until a new leader is chosen. For this kind of …

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Mutations in pluripotent stem cells: No, the sky is not falling

Figure-3-Merkle-et-al.-e1493736482727

By Jeanne Loring “Mutation” and “cancer” are eye-catching words for a headline; add “stem cells” and there is a good chance that a lot of people will hear about it. These words have been liberally used in the press to describe the results of a recent publication: “Human pluripotent stem cells recurrently acquire and expand …

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