Month: December 2020

Grading my 20 stem cell predictions for 2020

Knoepfler-The-Niche-stem-cell-blog-predictions-2020

Each year I metaphorically try to look into a crystal ball for stem cell predictions for the coming year and I did so for 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw a monkey wrench into my predictions. It actually kind of blew some up. It also raised some interesting questions and dilemmas. For instance, do many …

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Stem cells seed a new thymus, clinical hope?

thymus, stem cells, bioengineering

Imagine receiving a smidgeon of thymus gland along with a donated heart or kidney, to fool the immune system into accepting the transplant. Authors of a new study argue that might be possible, based on their new proof-of-principle experiments. The team from the Epithelial Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine lab at the Francis Crick …

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Spicy stem cell pathways & other recommended reads

Nociceptor-mediated HSC mobilization. "Schematic representation showing that nociceptive-nerve-derived CGRP, but not substance P, acts via CGRP receptors on HSCs to enhance their mobilization via a cAMP-mediated signalling pathway. "Gao et al Nature, Capsaicin acts via nociceptor signaling to mobilize blood stem cells.

The stem cell paper of the week is a fun one about how capsaicin and nociceptors reportedly mobilize blood stem cells.  However, since the authors only show this in mice, could it also happen in humans? They argue it’s likely happening in people too. Note that nociceptors are special structures in our bodies that sense …

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What are totipotent stem cells & what can they do?

Multipotent & totipotent vs pluripotent stem cells, very early human embryos totipotent stem cells

Sometimes patients or my students ask me, “What are the best stem cells?” what information are they looking for? I think they often are looking for the most powerful stem cells so perhaps they should be asking, “What are totipotent stem cells?” Other times it seems what patients specifically want to know is what might …

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Mesoblast stock hit on gloomy data on stem cells for COVID-19

mesoblast ceo dr silvio itescu

I’ve been closely following the arena of stem cells for COVID-19 since the pandemic broke including the efforts of Mesoblast. Mesoblast unlikely to meet primary endpoints in Phase III COVID trial Now, the firm got bad news as its DSMB reported that they are unlikely to meet the primary endpoint for their Phase III trial …

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Prop 14 California: Big Expectations for CIRM 3.0

cirm prop 14 california millan allday knoepfler

Approval of Prop 14 California last month to renew CIRM was one of the biggest state election developments of 2020. Yet it didn’t get much news coverage somehow. The exception is David Jensen over at California Stem Cell Report, who has been a great source of information about the various news surrounding Prop 14 and …

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Recommended regenerative medicine reads: making eggs, retraction, freezing, more

hamazaki et al nature fig 2b induction of oocytes from es cells

What to read when there are almost an endless number of stem cell and regenerative medicine pubs? Here are some suggestions including what I would say is a very unusual Nature paper on making egg cells from stem cells. If this could be done safely with human cells all the way to functional eggs, would …

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Weekly The Niche reads: lab-grown embryos & thymus, more

es cells embryos matrigel the niche sm

Today’s The Niche recommended weekly reads post includes both primary papers and also a few media pieces. I’m especially interested in the first piece on making more complex embryo-like structures from ES cells. This is a long way from just making embryoid bodies or EBs. At the end of the post I discuss an article …

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Not Old MacDonald’s Farm: is the future lab grown meat?

Paul-Burger-Pic-300x2041

Would you eat lab grown meat? Envision biting into a warm juicy burger with all the trimmings. Lab grown meat intro If you are a burger fan, your mouth may already be watering. Or maybe you prefer steak or bacon? If you are a vegetarian or animal welfare advocate, however, you might be rather disturbed …

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