It’s Friday so time for some stem cell headlines.
TGIF….although of course the stem cells will be growing, experiments going, the grants and papers continue being written, and data still analyzed on Saturdays and Sundays too in the stem cell field.
Stem cells are not a Mon-Fri, 9-5 kind of universe, but most of you reading this blog know that.
It seems like the last few weeks have brought an unusually high level of mainstream media coverage of the stem cell field with big headlines and big stories.
What to make of all of it?
What were your favorite or unfavorite headlines of the last few weeks on stem cells?
Here is my speedy take on some of these.
- Ian Wilmut is apparently in favor of making Woolly Mammoth iPS cells and maybe even cloning the animals. I’m not.
- Making teeth from pee via stem cells? A load of you know what….got way overblown and hyped by mainstream media and some scientists. Some of the headlines on this were downright stupid.
- All chemical iPS cells. I think it has some promise, but not the bombshell it would have been just a few years ago.
- CIRM approves alpha clinics. This is very exciting and is great news for patients.
- First clinical trial with iPS cells official started yesterday (August 1, 2013). I think this is a huge deal and got too little media coverage.
- Guilty plea in stem cell fraud case. Important. Again, more coverage needed.
- Stem cell (aka test tube) burger. I’m skeptical of the future of affordable stem cell-based food growth in the lab and why start with a burger, but I hope I’m wrong as many people are hungry. Letterman and O’Brien had some fun with it!
- Serious doubts raised about VSELs by Weissman publication and others. I think this was an important development that addressed a hyped area sucking up millions of much needed research dollars.