Month: May 2019

FDA cautions R3 Stem Cell & 50+ stem cell clinic affiliates

R3-Stem-Cell-testimonials

Today the FDA put an Arizona firm called R3 Stem Cell, LLC and its leader Dr. David Greene on notice that what they and 50+ affiliates centers are selling in the way of stem cells were not approved by the agency. R3 Stem Cell markets perinatal (birth-related) stem cell offerings on its website. There’s a …

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Dissecting Liveyon FDA inspection report & troubled perinatal stem cell industry

Liveyon

The perinatal stem cell clinic supplier Liveyon has had many issues recently including an FDA inspection that  in my view didn’t go well and which I’ll return to in a minute. First, some background on the company and this troubled industry. E. coli and other pathogens ended up in some of the Liveyon product somehow …

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Stem cell good news & pubs in late May 2019

Sangeetha-Vadakke-Madathil-et-al.-screenshot-of-video-PNAS-2019

The exciting and sometimes downright crazy giant stem cell ecosystem of legit research and unproven stem cell clinics could use a dose of good news now and then. In today post, I highlight some upbeat news and some interesting recent pubs. Enjoy! From a team led by Hina Chaudhry, MD, Director of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine at …

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Wild stem cell ad piggybacks off hyped ‘interstitium is new tissue’ pub

Union-Tribune-interstitium-stem-cell-ad

Last year an odd pub  made the big claim that the interstitium is a new organ. I didn’t buy that. Now an over-the-top stem cell advertisement that recently ran in the San Diego Union-Tribune (U-T) is piggybacking off of the supposed “interstitium as new tissue” claim to make all kinds of other claims about some …

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Probing Nature pub’s puzzling claim of brain cells globetrotting into prostate tumors

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A new Nature paper makes the striking claim that neural precursor cells of the brain migrate all the way to prostate tumors. Furthermore, the team led by Claire Magnon claims that these long-distance cellular travelers from the brain not only take up residence in the prostate but also strongly drive progression of the prostate cancer …

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The future of California stem cell research & CIRM

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The four words “California stem cell research” go nicely together and I hope they will continue to resonate in a special way to people around the world in the coming decade. We are at a crossroads for stem cell research in California as the original form of the California Stem Cell Agency (CIRM) winds down. …

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Asilomar: great science plus shells, flowers on the beach

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Asilomar is known in the field of biomedical sciences as a great place to go for small meetings. I was there recently for the First Annual Bay Area Stem Cell Conference, which I helped to organize. It was an exciting meeting and all the presenters (except keynoters) were trainees. The amount of great stem cell …

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Stem cell & other science weekend reads: arteries, diabetes, iffy metaphors, & more

weekend-reads-include-this-paper-from-Eric-Olsons-lab

What are your weekend reads? Many of us scientists read up on specific articles over the weekend that caught our eye during the last week or two. Here are some of my weekend reads plus some other stuff that just generally looked really interesting or unusual. The list includes both primary papers and news articles …

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FTC returns half a mill to consumers of “deceptively marketed amniotic stem cell therapy”

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There’s a lot of questionable “stem cell” injections these days involving purported amniotic stem cell or other perinatal (birth-related) material. Regulators are taking note including the FTC, which took some unprecedented action last year on this front. Now the FTC has announced that more than half a million $USD have been returned to consumers who …

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Recommended recent stem cell, peds cancer & CRISPR reads

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Here are some articles that look especially interesting on stem cells, cancer, and CRISPR. I was just at the SNO meeting in SFO on childhood brain tumors so those are on my mind more. Childhood cerebellar tumours mirror conserved fetal transcriptional programs (Nature) Childhood brain tumors “think” they are building organds in fetuses. H3.3 K27M depletion …

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