Anyone with a seemingly only semi-functional nervous system now post-election might be turning to science to help their brains bounce back. Here are some of the things I’ve been reading or hope to soon. In good news for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field, especially here in California, it looks like us California voters approved billions more in funding for CIRM, our state stem cell agency.
Alzheimer’s new directions
- FDA scientists appear to offer major endorsement of Biogen’s controversial Alzheimer’s treatment, STAT News. An FDA panel is surprisingly upbeat about a Biogen approach to Alzheimer’s, but what’s going on there? Things have gotten more complicated since that STAT piece went up as critics got fired up.
- Could Alzheimer’s in part be caused by certain infections and amyloid normally have a role in fighting those infections, but that role goes awry? Alison Abbott at Nature has a great piece on this controversial area of Alzheimer’s research that may be gaining traction.
More on dinosaur brains
Not too long ago scientists analyzed a rarity: a fossilized dinosaur brain that washed up on a British beach. Now we have We’ve Rarely Seen a Dinosaur Brain Like This Before, from the NY Times. A small dinosaur in S. America, Buriolestes schultzi, is predicted to have a much larger brain relative to body size than most dinosaurs. This conclusion comes from analysis of the skull cavity.
More news and pubs
- BAHCC1 binds H3K27me3 via a conserved BAH module to mediate gene silencing and oncogenesis, Nature Genetics, from Greg Wang’s lab. This is a big deal report a new H3K27me3 reader.
- CIRM-funded development of stem cell therapy for Canavan disease shows promising results, CIRM Blog
- BMP10 Signaling Promotes the Development of Endocardial Cells from Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiovascular Progenitors, Cell Stem Cell
- A DNA-based voltmeter for organelles, Nature Nanotechnology
- Defining the Teratoma as a Model for Multi-lineage Human Development, Cell. This resource article reports sc-RNA-Seq data from teratoma, which I don’t recall seeing before.
Can you please include a story about stem cells for lumbosacral adhesive arachnoiditis?