What if you could get 8-year grants to do whatever biomedical research you wanted? This sounds like a dream for many of us in the life sciences, but the first news item this week is all about such a potential new funding approach.
The item especially caught my eye as I’m going to be doing major NIH grant writing over the holidays. There are some funny and poignant cartoons at The Grant Writer’s Handbook page. I posted one above so check it out.
Recommended reads and news
- Can a new approach to funding scientific research unlock innovation?, Vox. The article focuses on Arc Institute, a new joint California institution that will fund biomedical science in new ways and for up to 8 years.
- Weighing up the evidence used by direct-to-consumer stem cell businesses, Stem Cell Reports.
- Single-cell delineation of lineage and genetic identity in the mouse brain, Nature.
- The journals Stem Cells and Stem Cells Translational Medicine are switching publishers per this announcement, “As of January 2022, STEM CELLS is no longer published by Wiley. Information and current content can be found on the new publisher’s website here: https://academic.oup.com/STMCLS.“
- Reprogrammed iBlastoids contain amnion-like cells but not trophectoderm, preprint from Fredrik Lanner’s lab. Human embryo models are a hot topic in the field now.
- UC Davis develops engineered bone marrow to study early osteosarcoma progression, UC Davis Health.
- ASH: A cell therapy startup with roots in Irv Weissman’s lab nearly wipes out a chronic side effect in early trials, Endpoints. There are some important caveats in the story.
- Hydra DNA Reveals There’s More Than One Way to Regrow a Head, NYT. Here’s the original research paper in Genome Biology & Evolution: Coordinated Gene Expression and Chromatin Regulation during Hydra Head Regeneration.
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Ethical issues cloud case report of unproven stem cell therapy for autism, Spectrum. One of the most striking parts of this story is that this team reporting intensive clinical experiments on kids claims no IRB approval was needed.