Month: September 2017

New FDA Inspection 483s: Insights on Stem Cell Clinic & Cell Surgical Network

Cell-Surgical-Network-Founders

Two new FDA inspection reports called 483s provide fresh insights on a stem cell clinic, the network of clinics that it belongs to, and adverse events in patients. These reports detail issues the FDA found at the stem cell clinic California Stem Cell Treatment Center and its parent chain of clinics, Cell Surgical Network. The …

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Science hype award for worst CRISPR headline

Daily-Mail-Science-Hype-CRISPR

Science hype is one of the more troublesome issues in our field today especially at its interface with the media, and unfortunately a ‘great’ example of that came this past week in a headline from the Daily Mail on the new CRISPR of human embryos paper from Kathy Niakan’s group in the UK. Although Niakan’s …

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Where I discover an alligator (lizard) in my garden

California-alligator-lizard-garden

If you garden long enough you may start to see some cool critters. We had an unusually wet winter and very hot, dry summer here in Davis, CA. Maybe it’s coincidence, but the range of creatures in my garden seems different. For instance, I’ve been seeing much bigger dragon flies this year and a lot …

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1st Knockout Human Embryos Made with CRISPR: My Take on the Pub

Fogarty-Fig-3d-human-embryo-CRISPR-e1505774206656

Scientist make knockout human embryos with CRISPR? Today we see a new Nature paper (Fogarty, et al.) on CRISPR “gene editing” of human embryos, this time from the UK from Kathy Niakan’s group. Niakan got UK permission about 18 months ago to CRISPR healthy human embryos so they’ve been hard at work since. Because Fredrik …

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TGIF: wacky picture caption contest

Clocks-with-no-arms-e1504221285903

OK, it’s been a long week of science so time for some fun: a caption contest. I took the below wacky picture at a place here in California because I was struck by how odd this situation looks. I think it deserves some clever caption. What is the best or funniest possible caption?

Cool stem cell papers: antibody reprogramming, organoids, gravity, & more

gut-organoid

The past few weeks have brought some exciting, thought-provoking stem cell papers and developments in the regenerative medicine field. Here’s a list of stem cell papers in the media that struck me as particularly cool along with some other developments in the field. Human Stem Cells Fight Parkinson’s Disease in Monkeys Organoids Reveal Clues to Gut-Brain …

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Mulling over that Mitalipov human embryo CRISPR pub, still many questions

human-embryo-modification

What really happened at the DNA level in the experiments in that high-profile CRISPR of human embryos paper from a team led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at OHSU? Is the team right that they successfully conducted CRISPR of human embryos to correct a mutant gene, as they reported in their Ma, et al. Nature paper? Or is the Egli, …

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Why I am still very skeptical about stem cells for autism

stem-cells-for-autism

When patient families reach out to me, one of the most common questions is whether stem cells for autism offer real hope. The short answer at this time remains “no”. Of course, it’s not as simple as just “no” because there isn’t enough data to be sure, but there is reason for major skepticism about …

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