I try to catch up on my science reading over the weekends and evenings. Here’s my recommended weekend reading on stem cells & science.
Did I miss anything especially cool? Let me know in the comments.
Direct reprogramming of skin cells into insulin-producing cells. I love direct reprogramming.
Healios and Athersys Enter Into Regenerative Medicine Partnership. Can they together create regen med success?
National honor for helping “the blind see” comes from CIRM blog.
Fun piece on CRISPR language by Ben Zimmer. ‘Crispr’ Breaks Out Of the Lab. If you don’t know what a backronym is, you should be interested in learning more.
Big claims here for zero off targets for a next gen CRISPR system. Zero is a very small number, eh?
The gut microbiome of the 5,000 year old frozen dude turn out to be a goldmine of sorts of info. Nice piece by Carl Zimmer, Ben’s brother. OK, what did these two brothers who are unusually great writers eat while growing up? Wheaties?
George Church on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Wonder what Letterman would think of George’s Top 10 List for genes with interesting phenotypes in humans? See my interview with Church for that list and a lot more interesting perspectives.
Human-animal chimeras, Antonio Regalado, tells us in a nifty article are currently gestating on farms (image above from that piece).
Ed Yong writes that CRISPR’s most exciting applications are in gene transcriptional regulation (admittedly a cool area) rather than in genetic modification. Great piece, but I disagree with the superlative.
I will be watching how the synergies between Healios’ iPSC and MultiStem play out. Although each type of stem cell may have specific clinical benefits, a strong case could be made for additional or increased benefits obtained by combining different cells into specific treatments. After all, living organisms contain many types of stem cells and the exact roles each type play and their interactions are not well understood.