Weekly reads: support brain tumor work, Prasad is out (again), genetic conditions, Texas AG, immunotherapy paper, SCBEM

Before we dive into the weekly reads, I wanted to explain something new on The Niche and ask for your support of our brain tumor research.

Brain tumor research funding

As many of you know, some firsthand, funding is extremely difficult to get these days. This is particularly true for NIH funding. Some NIH institutes are only funding 4-5% of applications. Foundations supporting brain tumor research are also getting more applications than ever without increases in what they can fund.

For these reasons, I’m asking for you to consider helping support my lab’s work on brain tumors including our main efforts on childhood glioma. These glioma, whose cells have some stem cell-like characteristics, are essentially 100% lethal even with intense treatment. The kids and their families need hope, and we’re working on potential novel therapies. One of our previous findings was that specific transcription factors normally involved in brain development (e.g., ASCL1) seem to be co-opted by these glioma to drive the tumor’s development and deadliness.

The new thing here on The Niche is the stem cell image at the top right of the page, which you can click to make a contribution to help the research. Thanks for considering this.

On to our recommended reads.

Prasad is out again

I’m sure many of you remember that when Vinay Prasad first joined the FDA as CBER director and in two other roles, he didn’t last long. But then he was back pretty quick last year. Now, he’s reportedly going to leave again per WSJ: FDA’s Controversial Vaccines Chief Will Leave the Agency. It’s not a shocker given the controversy he has stirred, but still it seems unprecedented in FDA history to have someone come and go twice in a short period as a branch leader.

A top official’s departure was one of my regenerative medicine predictions for 2026. Some faulted Prasad for being an obstacle to FDA approvals, including for rare diseases. To me, another big issue was the unpredictability tied to him. I hope that Prasad’s departure could lead to more stability on biologics, but we’ll have to see.

Recommended reads

• Texas Attorney General says state suing cord blood banking company, KXAN. How about going after the unproven stem cell clinics in that state?
• Critical evaluation of compositions and clinical relevance of Wharton’s jelly-derived biologics, JTM. Many products touted as having stem cells not only don’t have stem cells but also may have almost no cells at all. “MSC” products sometimes don’t have MSCs.
• 6 key dilemmas as human embryo models get ever closer to the real thing Research is proceeding without enough attention on ethical issues, STAT News. This is my latest column over at STAT. Human stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEM) are steadily becoming more like real embryos. They are still some hurdles, but tech advances like growing the models inside of endometrial tissue are likely to make the models much more similar to real human embryos. There’s a lot to consider here.
• Influencers are promoting peptides for better health. What does the science say? NPR. I have to say I’m sick of peptides already as an issue, but it’s not going away anytime fast. Peptides could be one of the top health problems for years to come. It’s important to be a voice of reason on this front. Apparently we are likely getting very close (perhaps within a week or two) to an RFK Jr./FDA announcement on unleashing many of the risky, unproven peptides. There’s no good reason to do that.
• Nature Medicine to investigate study that found cancer treatment is better in morning Sleuths point out inconsistencies in study that found big difference in timing of immunotherapy, STAT News. 

Genetic conditions & therapies

• Their Mutated Genes Were Supposed to Be Harmless “Carriers” of certain genetic diseases, who have just one affected gene, can have symptoms too, The Atlantic. This is an interesting piece by Roxanne Khamsi.
• My First Child Has a Genetic Syndrome. Can I Use I.V.F. to Spare My Second? With such a small risk of illness, does this type of embryo selection border on eugenics? NYT.