Month: August 2017

Mitalipov briefly responds to Egli preprint, stands by human embryo CRISPR pub findings

February 1, 2021 / By / 16 Comments
Shoukhrat-Mitalipov

There has been a wave of intense discussions both in the public domain such as on Twitter and behind the scenes over the new Egli, et al. preprint that challenges the main conclusions of the Ma, et al. Nature paper from Shoukhrat Mitalipov’s lab. Ma, et al. reported CRISPR gene editing of human embryos, arguing for …

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Doubts raised on key points of Nature paper on CRISPR gene editing of human embryos

February 1, 2021 / By / 11 Comments
Egli-Mitalipov-preprint

Is it possible that CRISPR gene editing actually didn’t happen in many of the human embryos in that big Nature paper that made such news a couple weeks back? Some doubts have emerged that call the main conclusions of the paper into question and argue that more definitive studies are needed to be sure. An …

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Will Right-To-Try Morph into Right-To-Profit for Stem Cell Clinics?

February 1, 2021 / By / 1 Comment
FDA-RMAT

On one level a reasonable argument can be made for letting terminally ill patients have a right to try experimental as yet unproven therapies, but in the real world Right-To-Try laws have many downsides. On the whole, they are likely to be negative for patients as a group.  Raising the stakes is a push for …

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Stem cell clinic group, Cell Surgical Network, fires PR back at FDA

February 1, 2021 / By
Cell-Surgical-Network

The FDA took some big action last week and issued a major statement today on stem cell clinics (see my post here). I asked Dr. Mark Berman of the Cell Surgical Network if he had any statement regarding the recent action and statement from the FDA today that involved flagship network member clinic, California Stem Cell …

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Six questions as FDA takes new shot at stem cell clinics

February 1, 2021 / By / 7 Comments
FDA-draft-guidance

The FDA issued a historic statement today promising to more clearly define its regulatory policies on stem cell therapies and to take strong action on some stem cell clinics that it views as “bad actors”. I’ve never the FDA use such clear-cut language before. I give big kudos to new FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. It already …

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Stem cell therapy review of good news: UC Davis, Asterias, Cynata, Mesoblast, ViaCyte

February 1, 2021 / By / 2 Comments
VC-01-post-implant-final1-e1503703572933, viacyte

It’s a difficult, but very important road to conclusively prove that an investigational stem cell therapy is both safe and effective in order to get final approval FDA or equivalents in other countries. For this reason, it is beneficial to highlight even small, but positive steps forward including encouraging pre-clinical data. Today I’m doing a …

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Stem cell transplants: hIPSC and hESC behave similarly in brain & often fuse with host cells

February 1, 2021 / By / 8 Comments
Martinez-Cerdeno-Figure-6

What happens following pluripotent stem cell transplants into the brain? Are human IPS and ES cells going to function similarly in this context? We recently published a new translational paper on the behavior of human pluripotent stem cells when transplanted into the adult mouse brain in collaboration with my great UC Davis colleague, Dr. Veronica Martinez-Cerdeno. …

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Sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay in touch on stem cells & CRISPR

February 1, 2021 / By
newsletter

Please sign up for our weekly blog newsletter. This will help you stay up to date on all the latest stem cell news and CRISPR developments. You can sign up for the newsletter below. [wysija_form id=”1″] Also, you can sign up as a registered user of this blog in a few seconds over there at …

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Scientist’s dilemma: find a public voice on big issues or stay silent?

February 1, 2021 / By / 1 Comment
Scientists-Dilemma

There is a scientist’s dilemma: should you speak out on important, sometimes controversial issues in science, where you not only can potentially have positive impact, but also risk being attacked for it? Or do you remain silent? I’ve now been blogging for more than 7 years. I’ve battled the often exploitive for-profit stem cell clinics …

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Young blood as anti-aging fountain of youth: hype or hope?

May 11, 2022 / By / 9 Comments
young-blood-transfusion-1.jpg-anti-aging-300x225-1

There’s an idea floating around out there called “young blood” to use donations from young folks to infuse older people to reverse aging. I’m skeptical. Imagine an old man and a teenager sitting side by side, with blood flowing from the kid to the oldster in a stab at anti-aging. Sort of like a one-way …

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