When I was first really getting into stem cells as a trainee the name Catherine Verfaillie came up as a scientist to watch in the adult stem cell area. It wasn’t too long after that though that I started hearing that some of the work from her lab at the University of Minnesota was being […]
Recommended reads: Nature Catherine Verfaillie retraction, Horvath paper, Vertex Read More »
Combinations of human flesh and robots are more in the news lately. Sometimes the fleshy parts are grown from stem cells in a lab. Robots with fleshy faces Scientists in Japan Give Robots a Fleshy Face and a Smile, NYT. I’m working on a piece about robots in China with small, human brain-like structures. Stay tuned
Recommended reads: flesh-faced robots, ALS, Spina Bifida,neuronal CRISPR Read More »
Anti-aging might already be the big regenerative medicine story of 2024 and it’s only early March. Anti-aging hype going to the dogs? One of my 20 stem cell and regenerative medicine predictions for 2024 was that longevity would continue to make big news including in some not-so-great ways. In just over two months there has
I’ve been thinking more about the steady stream of epigenetic clock research out there. How convincing is the research on such clocks? Do they tightly relate to human biological age? The related notion of turning back such hypothetical clocks to reverse aging is exciting but controversial. It doesn’t help that some are hyping all of
Is DNA methylation destiny? Diving into new epigenetic clock research Read More »
Altos Labs is an intriguing multi-institution experiment in so-called rejuvenation research all rolled into one biotech. This relatively new entity headquartered in California has multiple Nobel laureates in the biomedical field in leadership. Even more importantly it has a large group of great researchers leading its individual research labs. This all leads to high expectations,
Some surprises from new analysis of Altos Labs papers Read More »
Who is David Sinclair and why is he all over the media related to anti-aging efforts? This post is my effort to fact-check Sinclair’s statements in the context of the broader rejuvenation arena. In the process I also review his most recent paper from my view as a stem cell and cancer biologist interested in
Review of new David Sinclair paper, supplements & anti-aging glitz Read More »
When we hear the word senile we might think stereotypically of an older person who has cognitive impairment, but some argue that senility can apply to cells too as they age and that such cells can be targeted by drugs called senolytics. Unfortunately, the supplements industry has picked up on this idea to sell iffy
Recommended reads: senolytics, cow iPS cells, big CIRM royalty Read More »
I wrote briefly a few months ago about Altos Labs. It’s a new kind of biotech institute that is focused on cellular reprogramming. Now we know much more and it’s clear this is a huge deal. What’s in this article What is Altos Labs? | Cellular rejuvenation | Reprogramming oldness | Challenges | Altos Strategies | Analysis of
All about Altos Labs and $3B cellular rejuvenation push Read More »
Stem cells may have anti-aging properties, but they are unlikely to be a real fountain of youth. Even so, people are obsessed with aging and stem cells regularly are thought of as “the ticket” for fighting aging. I’ll start today’s recommended reads with that topic and then go on to list some interesting papers of
Weekly reads: Bezos & stem cells for anti-aging, Myc, more Read More »
Eric Lander’s recent piece in Cell on The Heroes of CRISPR has sparked strong reactions that are mostly critical and have argued that the article is biased. I’m going to weigh in with my own thoughts at some point later, but I thought it would be interesting to try a word cloud-based text mining of the Lander
Does Word Cloud of Lander’s Heroes of CRISPR Text Suggest Bias? Read More »