Month: April 2019

Recap & Thoughts on Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 (lots of spoilers so beware!)

Game-of-Thrones-Season-8-Episode-3

This post is a recap of some major points of Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 and The Battle of Winterfell. Before you go on, there are tons of SPOILERS ahead so stop and leave now if you don’t want to see them. Really, many SPOILERs so go away if you don’t want to …

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CRISPR baby moratorium grows likely with rising tide of support including from biotech

CRISPR-gene-edit-vs-mutation-1

Trying to make a CRISPR baby any time soon would be a really bad idea. How bad? Last December 3rd I penned a piece for STAT News arguing for a moratorium on the heritable use of CRISPR in humans. This potential future, radical application of “gene editing” is now often colloquially referred to as “CRISPR …

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How to Build a Dragon or Die Trying: check out new book with my daughter Julie

How-to-Build-a-Dragon-or-Die-Trying

My daughter Julie and I have written a book together entitled,  “How to Build a Dragon or Die Trying, A satirical look at cutting edge science.” The book will be out sometime in June most likely. This is a very different kind of book than my first two, Stem Cells: An Insider’s Guide and GMO …

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Weekend reads: reversing death of pig brain cells, brain-gut stem cell link, plant stem cells, & more

pig-brain-fighting-death

It’s been a cool week for stem cell and other associated kinds of research. In this post I have a series of links to a variety of interesting developments and papers. Gene therapy cures bubble boy infants. William Wan over at the WaPo on this good news. Nope, this wasn’t done with CRISPR, but rather …

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My take as a biologist on US Stem Cell “natural” claim in federal court case endgame

SVF2

It’s been less than a year since the FDA sued for a permanent injunction against a major stem cell clinic firm in Florida, but there has been much back and forth in court filings in the lawsuit between them and the firm, US Stem Cell. Now the case is with the judge. My prediction remains …

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Sexual Medicine Society on Unproven Regenerative Therapies for Erectile Dysfunction

Sexual-Medicine-Society-of-North-America

There are many potential causes of erectile dysfunction or ED and a host of ideas about how to treat it. Some approaches to erectile dysfunction are evidence-based and even have been rigorously proven such as the drugs Viagra and Cialis, which increase blood flow to the penis. Depending on the causes of the dysfunction, these …

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Stem cell good news: novel cancer work, new CA bills, Alzheimer’s, & more pubs

stem-cells-alzheimers

There’s nothing like stem cell good news and interesting publications to perk one up on a Monday. Enjoy. What recent papers have struck you as exciting? Novel stem cell-based cancer approaches (Part 1) It was exciting when Fate Therapeutics got the first induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC) IND in the U.S. for their IPSC-derived natural killer cell …

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Why NY AG suit against Manhattan stem cell clinic is such a big deal

New-York-stem-cell-clinic-sued-by-AG

The New York State Attorney General (AG) filed suit this week against a Manhattan stem cell clinic. It’s a landmark case. The defendants are Image Plastic Surgery, LLC, Park Avenue Stem Cell, and Joel B. Singer, M.D. The clinic markets adipose stem cell injections for a variety of health conditions. Park Avenue Stem had belonged …

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Perspectives: FDA warns umbilical firm & continues stream of “mini-warning” letters

umbilical-cord-blood, umbilical cord blood stem cells

Yesterday we learned that the FDA issued a warning letter to the cord stem cell firm, Cord for Life. In this warning, the FDA indicated that the firm’s product is actually a drug product and lacks necessary pre-market approvals. In addition, the agency highlighted apparent deviations from CGMP practices. The most important part of the …

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