Year: 2017

Taming an unruly immune system: a risky stem cell transplant that changed fate of some Canadian MS patients

Dr.-Harry-Atkins

By Hamideh Emrani (@HamidehEmrani) This year, Dr. Harold Atkins was honored with the Till & McCulloch Award. He and Dr. Mark Freedman led a clinical trial that used stem cells to reset the immune system as a treatment strategy for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and a few other neurodegenerative diseases, such as stiff person syndrome. You can …

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Update on CIRM’s future: will it include 2020 measure?

Robert-Klein

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, more widely known as CIRM, has accomplished big things over the course of its history of about a decade and sparked a great deal of innovation, but what does the future hold for our stem cell agency? CIRM has a new, respected President and CEO Maria Millan solving one …

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‘Very Alarmed’: North Dakota AG Investigating Stem Cell Clinic

West-2-North-Medical-Solutions-stem-cell-clinic

According to The Bismarck Tribune and the AP/US News & World Report, the North Dakota Attorney General’s office is investigating a stem cell clinic in that state amid complaints. From the news articles: “The clinic has been offering stem cell injections for about a week and a half. Consumer Protection Division Director Parrell Grossman says there are …

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Vote now for finalists for Stem Cell Person of the Year Award 2017

stem-cell-person-of-the-year

We have our 20 nominees for Stem Cell Person of the Year for 2017. Who will get the Award? You have a big role to play in this process. In addition to having had the chance to nominate people, now you as The Niche community get to vote to pick the top 10 finalists. In the …

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Seeing isn’t always believing: a cautionary tale on GFP transfer when trying to restore vision

Valerie-Wallace

By Samantha Yammine When our TV stops working, it’s usually because one of the wires has come unplugged. We begrudgingly huff and puff over to the back of the TV, track down the loose culprit, plug it back in, and boom: back to Netflix. If you multiply all those wires in the back of your …

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20 Stem Cell Person of The Year 2017 Award Nominees

stem-cell-person-of-the-year

Nominations have closed for the 2017 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award and we have a great group of nominees. I’ve listed them below in alphabetical order, along with a bit of description of who they are, which includes in some cases the language used by the nominator(s). Where possible I’ve included a link …

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Polls: What will stem cell clinics & FDA do now?

FDA

Now that in the past few months the FDA has issued stern statements (one this summer and more recently), both final and draft guidances, and at least one warning letter, what comes next?  What will the clinics do if anything moving forward? What if anything will the FDA do in terms of actual concrete actions? …

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Two more big milestones for The Niche blog

The-Niche-Blog

I started The Niche blog in largely its current form early in 2010, and now 7+ years later we’ve hit two big milestones recently. First, about a month ago, we reached 10,000 comments made on the blog. Thanks for being involved in the discussion on the Niche blog! Second, we reached 7,000,000 total page views …

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Deconstructing FDA Mixed Bag Approach to Stem Cell Clinics

FDA-draft-guidance

In a nutshell, what does all of this week’s big FDA developments on stem cells and regenerative medicine mean for stem cell clinics? There’s much to be upbeat about so overall I’d say it’s good news, but I see three significant potential problems too. Dang. The good news is that the FDA seems determined to …

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