If you tell a scientist that they should be growing a spine, they might take you literally. For instance, if you say this because you want a scientist to show some courage and speak out about something difficult, instead they might try to make an actual human spine in a lab.
We’ll start there this week and move toward our blast from the past about stem cell soups.
You might think from the headline for this post that actress Denise Richards got stem cells. She might have, but the story is about her husband being sued for allegedly doing something fraudulent with probably unproven stem cells on a cancer patient.
Growing a spine (er, or actually a notochord)
Scientists Have Grown a Human Spine In a Lab, Popular Mechanics. Actually, not. Oops. The article immediately pretty much admits its headline is wrong. Not a great way to start. Still, it’s an interesting piece about very cool research on spine development and growing a notochord. From the item: “What’s particularly exciting is that the notochord in our lab-grown structures appears to function similarly to how it would in a developing embryo,” Tiago Rito, first author of the study, said. “It sends out chemical signals that help organise surrounding tissue, just as it would during typical development.”
More regenerative reads
- Delivery of Prime editing in human stem cells using pseudoviral NanoScribes particles, Nat. Comm.
- China’s NMPA clears country’s first mesenchymal stem cell therapy, BioWorld. “China’s health regulator gave conditional approval to Platinum Life Excellence Biotech Co. Ltd.’s amimestrocel injection (hUC-MSC PLEB-001, Ruibosheng) as the nation’s first human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cell therapy to treat steroid-refractory acute graft-vs.-host disease on Jan. 2, 2025.” This sounds similar to the FDA’s approval of Mesoblast’s Ryoncil.
- Meet the California Institute Pushing Stem Cell and Gene Therapy Research: Part 1, The Medicine Maker. This is an interview with CIRM’s President Jonathan Thomas.
- Denise Richards’ Husband Aaron Phypers Sued for Alleged Fraud Involving Cancer Patient, OK. From the piece, “The couple ended up giving Phypers $126,000 for the treatments. Although Phypers gave Katsioula-Beall several stem cell treatments from July to September of 2023, they did not work. When going in for an MRI in December of 2023, she found out her tumors had actually grown by 25 percent.” The wife in this piece had sarcoma. What was this Phypers guy doing giving supposed stem cell treatments for cancer? What kind of stem cells were used? People Magazine also covered this and wrote that the couple “paid Phypers $126,000 and returned for the stem cell procedures between July and September 2023, per the docs. Just months later in December, Perry claims his wife was told her tumors had expanded by 25%, so they wrote Phyper to let him know and request $63,000 of their money back.” They didn’t get it. More generally, those selling unproven stem cells just do not give back money.
Blast from the past
Please pass on bull testicles Soup No. 5 & on stem cell Soup No. 7. Weirdly, this post from 11 years ago is still getting a few reads each week. It seems people are still eating these weird soups that are claimed to have regenerative properties. I can’t decide whether Soup No. 5 or Soup No. 7 is worse. Thoughts? Also, what’s scarier, the soups or the alleged fraud by Denise Richards’ husband?