Early during my postdoc I was primarily interested in the role of Myc genes both in cancer and in stem cells, work that later included embryonic stem cells. These cells are often called ES cells. At first I first started studying N-Myc in neural stem cells using a conditional knockout approach. However, soon after I was …
Weekly reads: embryonic stem cells, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s Read More »
When I first started this blog back in 2010 the most contentious issue on the more political side of our field was federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It was something you couldn’t take for granted. Some history on embryonic stem cell funding in the US There were times back then when funding of …
Is embryonic stem cell research a target after Roe? Read More »
What are embryonic stem cells and how do we scientists obtain them? My lab here at UC Davis School of Medicine has been doing research on embryonic stem cells for more than 14 years. You’ve come to the right place for expert answers on these very intriguing cells. What’s in this article Where do embryonic …
What are embryonic stem cells & where do they come from? Read More »
We kind of take for granted these days that embryonic stem cell research can proceed without any restrictions, at least at the federal level. However, in the early days of blogging here on The Niche the big debate and battle were over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Things got very complicated and for …
Lessons from when embryonic stem cell research was illegal Read More »
Here we go again with people trying to ban funding of embryonic stem cell research. Really? Yes, including according to a new article from the Catholic News Agency. Who is trying to get this ban? Some Republicans in The U.S. Senate. I’ve wondered for years if the Trump Administration might take action against embryonic stem …
US Senate bill would ban embryonic stem cell research Read More »
Here’s out latest poll: What will Trump admin do about embryonic stem cells?
It was intriguing last week to read about another advance in somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)-based therapeutic cloning of human embryonic stem cells (hESC). The first such work was published last year by Mitalipov’s group from OHSU. This second paper to produce so-called nuclear transfer hESC (NT-hESC) made the important advance to show that it could …
The main challenges for SCNT cloning of human embryonic stem cells Read More »
An international team of stem cell scientists has replicated human therapeutic cloning to make embryonic stem cells via somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The team was led by Drs. Dong Ryul Lee of CHA Stem Cell Institute in Korea and Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) and reported the advance in the Chung, et …
Adult human therapeutic cloning of embryonic stem cells by SCNT Read More »
BioTime (BTX), via its subsidiary Asterias, has formally purchased the Geron (GERN) embryonic stem cell (ESC) research program and assets. Incidentally, Asterias in nature refers to a genus of sea stars including starfish and you can see it in their logo. Perhaps this was chosen given the amazing regenerative capacity of starfish? You may recall …
Great news: BioTime Subsidiary Asterias Acquires Geron Embryonic Stem Cell Program Read More »
For the first time ever, scientists have successfully used somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) via the process of therapeutic human cloning to generate normal human embryonic stem cells (hESC). Recall that there are two kinds of human cloning: therapeutic (which is reported in the new paper discussed in this post) and reproductive, which is making …
Human cloning successfully makes embryonic stem cells Read More »