The private cord blood bank industry has promised families all kinds of great things over the years. A typical ad for such cord blood banks might say, “Your child may need cord blood in the future for a cure.” The industry also often uses the analogy of frozen cord blood as an insurance policy for […]
People often ask me about stem cells for autism or even their hope of an autism cure. I’ve explained that there is no new treatment for autism based on stem cells. There aren’t even mildly encouraging data. Note that it can be hurtful to the community to talk about an autism cure and disregarding neurodiversity.
CRISPR gene editing has made rapid progress heading from bench to bedside. Perhaps the fastest has been its progress toward clinical use to combat sickle cell disease. We’ll start with a new paper on one major effort here. CRISPR gene editing. This process often involves cutting DNA, which then can be used as an opening to
Weekly reads: CRISPR sickle cell, Parkinson’s, pig-human chimera concerns Read More »
Several groups including Viviane Tabar who is a founding scientist at BlueRock Therapeutics are moving forward on potential cell therapies for Parkinson’s Disease. BlueRock just released some new data that’s worth a look. Check out the new BlueRock poster. In today’s post, I briefly discuss the new data. I also go into the larger context
Small positive step for BlueRock Therapeutics Stem Cell Therapy for Parkinson’s Read More »
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 »
It’s been almost seventeen years that I’ve been a professor here at UC Davis Medical School. It feels like home. I enjoy teaching our first-year medical students each year. Some end up doing research in my lab. Our school recently got a nice write-up over at STAT News by Usha Lee McFarling on the diversity
Weekly reads: UC Davis Medical School diversity, CRISPR, Parkinson’s Read More »
When I first started The Niche more than a dozen years ago, I hoped we’d see a Parkinson’s disease stem cell therapy by now. A proven one. I was a little too optimistic back then. Now in 2022, I know much better how hard translation to the bedside can be in general. Still, I’m hopeful.
Parkinson’s disease stem cell therapy research update Read More »
It seems like the field of cell biology has mixed feelings about fibroblasts so I’m going to start off there with the recommended reads. But first, check out our stem cell YouTube channel as we are steadily heading toward 500 subscribers and 30,000 views. Please subscribe. I’ve pasted one of our top videos below, which
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This edition of The Niche weekly reads has a bit more good news than usual including on stem cell transplants. It’s nice to see positive developments like some recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplants being able to stay at home afterwards. Also, a reminder. You have until July 31 to enter our stem cell video
I’m playing catch-up on some reading given how busy I’ve been and this includes a groundbreaking NEJM pub on CRISPR for Sickle Cell and Thalassemia. CRISPR for Sickle Cell From December, here’s the key paper in the NEJM: CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing for Sickle Cell Disease and β-Thalassemia. There’s a lot to like about this clinical
Recommended reads: CRISPR for Sickle Cell, Parkinson’s, & more Read More »