The last six months I’ve been spending even more time than usual writing NIH grants (and a few others). The last two weeks have been especially busy on this front as I am getting an R01 renewal out the door. My paper reading lately has been mostly related to the grant writing I’m doing. Still, …
Weekly reads: NIH grants, side effect of darker hair, FDA warning, CRISPR Read More »
What if you could get 8-year grants to do whatever biomedical research you wanted? This sounds like a dream for many of us in the life sciences, but the first news item this week is all about such a potential new funding approach. The item especially caught my eye as I’m going to be doing …
Weekly reads: hydra heads, iblastoids, new 8-year grants Read More »
Stem cell good news time and more will be coming later this week. The stem cell and regenerative medicine world sometimes feels chaotic. Why? Because so much is going on both on the positive and negative sides of things. There is a whirlwind of activity and developments, and a tendency sometimes within our arena to …
Stem cell good news: Spinal Cord Injury Trial, CIRM, Grants, & More Read More »
What’s on your mind on this Monday morning and are you caffeinated enough yet? Depending on where you live it may even be time for dinner, bed, or already early Tuesday. Here are some Monday musings… To get safe and effective stem cell treatments to patients in a responsible, compliant manner you need commercial efforts …
Monday morning musings: stocks, ISSCR, grants, CRISPR, New Book Read More »
Scientific reviews and scores are in for CIRM’s Disease Team III RFA. We don’t know the identifies of the applicants yet, but 3 out of 4 of the top scoring grants recommended outright for funding are focused on cancer. As a cancer stem cell researcher (and cancer survivor) I’m excited to see how well these …
Cancer Grants Perform Well With CIRM Disease Team Reviews Read More »
I just received a copy of CIRM’s proposed response to the IOM recommendations. Regarding what I believe to be the most important element, revamping the CIRM Board (aka ICOC), I was interested to see that CIRM (via President Jonathan Thomas) recommended that all institutional members of the Board no longer vote on whether to fund …
“Solomonic” CIRM Proposal: Institutional Board Members Would not Vote on Grants Read More »
Biomedical science is all about data, discoveries, brainstorming, and ultimately making a difference in patients’ lives, right? Isn’t it true? Well, hmmm….. I wish that were true and maybe at some point in the past it was true. Nowadays there is a different reality. The black hole at the center of most biomedical scientists’ universes …
The black hole: grants eat up most of scientists’ lives Read More »
There has been a steady stream of encouraging data on stem cells for MS. Particularly for certain kinds of MS. A new study adds to this upbeat direction. Good news on stem cells for MS Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation for treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in Sweden: an observational cohort study, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, …
Weekly reads: stem cells for MS, Kimera Labs IND, FDA lawsuit Read More »
I’m kind of in grant writing hell at the moment, as many of you may have been at various times, but I’m still finding time to read a little on cell therapy and stem cell research. Here are some things that caught my eye as I work on multiple grants with impending deadlines. Clinical trials …
Weekly reads: cell therapy trials, melanoma, β-thalassemia Read More »
I’ve written before about Liz Parrish and her life-extension firm BioViva. Now they appear to have connections with another entity called Integrated Health Systems or IHS, according to a new Wired article. Some of what is going on with IHS and maybe BioViva in Mexico seems extremely risky to me. BioViva, Parrish, and Integrated Health Systems The …
Weekly reads: BioViva & life-extension clinic, RMATs, universal cells Read More »