Month: January 2020

In landmark step, judge does not defer to FDA in stem cell clinic chain case, orders full trial

Judge-Jesus-Bernal

In what could be a serious legal warning sign for the stem cell field, California federal district court Judge Jesus Bernal denied the government’s motion for summary judgement against Cell Surgical Network, et al. related to their marketing of an unproven fat stem cell product via their chain of clinics. The FDA is seeking a …

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More Liveyon links to exosome Awakening film include potential relative

Awakening-film-marketing-screenshot

A new film-commercial entitled Awakening pitches unproven exosomes and has already been possibly tied to the troubled stem cell supplier firm Liveyon, but now it seems that the links go far deeper including a possible relative of Liveyon leader John Kosolcharoen. Even so, Kosolcharoen (pictured with another Liveyon leader Alan Gaveck below in a web …

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Heads up on Hui Yang, another potential aspiring CRISPR baby researcher

-Yui-Hang

Making a CRISPR baby is a controversial idea to even propose now for many reasons, yet even after He Jiankui’s train wreck some people have seemed eager to try it including apparently a scientist whose name perhaps many readers here are not so familiar with in this context: Professor Hui Yang. ‘CRISPR baby guys’ Is …

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Upbeat poll results on the future of CIRM funding

CIRM-poll-1-1-1

I recently started 2 polls on the future of CIRM. The polls are focused on the effort led by Robert Klein to get more funding from the State of California for the stem cell agency. They asked readers about whether Californians will refund CIRM and whether Californians should refund CIRM. Basically, the polls are asking …

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Mystery of wild sci-fi film ad for unproven exosomes: Liveyon?

awakening-exosome-film-ad

What’s Liveyon up to these days? A new, somewhat mysterious short film that serves as an advertisement for unproven exosomes has some of us scratching our heads. It seems to point to Liveyon. Can you guys as readers of The Niche help solve the puzzle of who’s behind this wild “cinematic commercial” and what the …

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Stem cell clinic busted: police make arrests in Indonesia

Police-in-Indonesia-seal-off-an-illegal-stem-cell-clinic

Police in Indonesia have busted a stem cell clinic. They shut down an allegedly illegal stem cell clinic and made arrests of those working there including potentially the doctor. The clinic was located in Kemang, South Jakarta, but the clinic is not named and the personnel are listed by their initials including a Doctor OH. …

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IPS cell field update: easy culture, Parkinson’s, scarring, immune cells, & mutations

Fibrosis-model-IPS-cells-Fig-1b-Vijayaraj-et-al-Cell-Reports-2019

Where do things stand today in 2020 with IPS cell research? It’s been 14 years since they were first reported, but they continue to make news. Back in 2006 I was wrapping up my postdoc with Bob Eisenman at The Hutch in Seattle, largely studying Myc, when Shinya Yamanaka published his first induced pluripotent stem …

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As Goop Lab TV show approaches, my look at their ‘stem cell’ products

Gwyneth-Paltrow-of-Goop-Labs

Gwyneth Paltrow has a new Netflix show coming up in a couple of weeks called “The Goop Lab” and her Goop company promotes a lot of wacky things so one Sunday over lunch I thought I’d take a look at what they sell related to stem cells. Going into this, I didn’t know for sure …

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20/20 vision? The Niche’s 20 stem cell & regenerative medicine predictions for 2020

The-Niche-stem-cell-predictions-2020

Every year in December and early January I do a post predicting some key events for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field for the upcoming year and today’s post contains my predictions for 2020. You can see my past 2019 predictions along with my grades for them here. I gave myself a B+ for …

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