It’s been mostly a downbeat week on the stem cell news front including a deep revisit by Reuters to the Piero Anversa case that has new revelations. It’s ugly stuff involving other folks too. We’ll start on the iPS cell front, where a trial participant had a teratoma. I’ve had a long-standing interest in the …
Remember when the Piero Anversa situation first made news or at least when you first heard about it? In the public domain, it was back around April 2014. I didn’t even do a whole post on it, but rather it made two bullet points in a post about a set of bad overall news including the latest …
Anversa debacle vs. STAP cell train wreck & what’s next Read More »
In a stunner, Harvard and Brigham & Women’s Hospital reportedly have jointly called for the retraction of 31 papers on heart stem cell research authored by embattled heart stem cell researcher Piero Anversa. The scoop on this by STAT/Retraction Watch written by Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus gives further details on this mess and past …
Call for 31 Anversa retractions by Harvard; heart stem cell concept broken? Read More »
It’s been a busy few weeks for the stem cell field. Below are some news briefs on developments. RetractionWatch reports that Piero Anversa is leaving Harvard/Brigham and Women’s Hospital after an investigation and dismissed lawsuit he filed against the institution. All still quiet on the STAP cell front at the same institutions. There’s some more …
Stem Cell News Briefs: Anversa, Japan Regs, Ocata Suit, More Read More »
Brigham and Women’s Hospital cardiac stem cell researcher Piero Anversa along with collaborator Annarosa Leri (pictured) are suing both the hospital and Harvard Medical School as well as leaders at the institutions over a research misconduct investigation focused on Anversa and Leri. Boston Globe reporter Carolyn Johnson has been covering Anversa and for background on this new …
Harvard Sued by Anversa Over Stem Cell Paper Misconduct Investigation Read More »
Paolo Macchiarini is one of a small group of people in the stem cell universe whose misconduct has blown up in the press. Piero Anversa, Haruko Obokata, Hwang Woo-Suk, and some operators in the unproven stem cell clinic sphere come to mind. Macchiarini published quite a few seriously problematic papers, some of which just hung …
Weekly reads: late Macchiarini retractions, stem cells & Lululemon Read More »
Retraction Watch has been a great resource for those of us who have been following research misconduct. They widely cover and conduct research on retractions, corrections, and other developments in this space. Unfortunately, there’s been plenty to write about even just within the stem cell and cell therapy arena, which is my primary interest. Think …
Are there endogenous adult heart stem cells that are useful in cardiac disease or can stem cell infusions help ailing hearts? As to the first question, the adult heart does not appear to have meaningful numbers of true stem cells. Further, testing the idea of infusions of stem cells for heart disease has so far been giving …
Heart stem cells trial mostly disappoints but is oversold Read More »
What should we make of clinics like the Lung Health Institute? These clinics sell unproven stem cell or regenerative therapies for lung disease. Overall, I’m extremely skeptical. I don’t believe it’s worth the cost. There are also going to be potentially serious health risks. Lung disease is a broad category including COPD, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, …
Fact check: Lung Health Institute & cell therapies for lung disease Read More »
Can a heart repair itself via their own stem cells and do hearts have meaningful populations of stem cells? Science evolves Sometimes what we scientists all know to be true turns out later on to be wrong and there are clear instances of this in the stem cell field. For example for decades the dogma was …