How does one keep up with all the regenerative medicine and stem cell happenings?
There is always something happening in the stem cell and regenerative medicine field ranging from science to policy matters. This post is an update on some recent stem cell happenings that I see as notable or interesting.
New Pubs
- Direct reprogramming pub. One of the more interesting recent papers was from direct reprogramming guru Marius Wernig as his team came out with a new transdifferentiation paper that strikingly reports conversion of T cells into neurons without an intermediate IPS cell step. Being able to make almost any cell via transdifferentiation from blood cells has major therapeutic implications. I’ve been hoping for years for more advances with direct reprogramming, but this cool area of research has been somewhat slow to develop. I still think it has enormous potential. See Figure 1B from the Tanabe, et al. paper above.
- This short pub from Cell Stem Cell is also kind of unexpected and interesting: Exit from Naive Pluripotency Induces a Transient X Chromosome Inactivation-like State in Males.
- Can cyclic, transient reprogramming factor expression in vivo have beneficial effects without causing teratoma? There is some ongoing debate on this. Another new paper weighs in over at Stem Cells: “Reduction of Fibrosis and Scar Formation by Partial Reprogramming In Vivo.”
The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) website has a new look that is worth checking out. ARM is pushing on PR too with a new foundation to “Promote Understanding and Acceptance of Potentially Curative Cell and Gene Therapies.”
Right-To-Profit? Over at Science-Based Medicine, the ever-blunt David Gorski dissects the new Right-To-Try law and has a whole section on his strong views on stem cells clinics as well as how the RTT law may have some bad impact there.
(3/3) The race is still too close to call. We look forward to celebrating a win, but what is needed now is patience and kindness. There will be a Democrat on the ballot to challenge Rohrabacher and whoever prevails will need the support of a united party behind them. #CA48 pic.twitter.com/6TB9KZWc9J
— Dr. Hans Keirstead (@drhanskeirstead) June 7, 2018
Stem cell scientist & politics. At this point stem cell scientist Hans Keirstead slightly leads in the run for 2nd place in his California congressional primary race, but just by a few dozen votes. Too close to call so far!