Sometimes it seems like a theme spontaneously emerges in pubs that I want to read for a given week like the set of single-cell analysis papers but there are diverse, other items including a striking day-night brain stem cell cycle paper and an interesting piece on identical twins who got COVID. What are you reading …
Recommended reads: Single-cell work, COVID twin study, more Read More »
What new papers and news in the stem cell sphere caught your eye? Here are some recent items that seem notable to me. Diabetes relief in mice by glucose-sensing insulin-secreting human α-cells. This paper reports cellular reprogramming to insulin-producing cells in mice. They reprogrammed α-cells with Pdx1 and MafA proteins. ‘Mitophagy inhibits amyloid-β and tau pathology and reverses …
Recent stem cell pubs & news: reprogramming, chromatin, single-cell, Astellas, & more Read More »
My lab is focused in part on chromatin states in stem cells and cancer including heterochromatin. In fact, my lab’s website is chromatin.com. Heterochromatin is dense, often inactive chromatin. By H&E staining and electron microscopy, heterochromatin looks dark compared to the rest of the nucleus, largely composed of euchromatin. Toward the end of my postdoc …
Weekly reads: heterochromatin, H3.3, Mesoblast bump Read More »
I’m trying to remember the first time I ever heard about clones. It had to be as a kid. Maybe in a monster movie or TV show? Possibly a clone was referred to by the more general term “double”, which is not necessarily a clone. Whatever it was, I’m sure as a kid that I …
Weekly reads: game of clones, super-SOX, Moonwalk Bio, Great Wall’s living skin Read More »
What’s more important than Woolly Mammoth de-extinction research in the stem cell arena? Only maybe a 10,000 other things. Still, the mammoth de-extinction efforts capture people’s attention much more than the average research story. Mammoth De-extinction update Is de-extinction only a pipette dream? This startup has a big, expensive plan to find out, Popular Science. …
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 »
Where do things stand with the investigative approach of stem cells for diabetes? 33% of Type 1 Diabetes Patients Insulin-Free With Stem Cells, Medscape. Not the best headline given the few number of participants here. If your study has only two subjects and one responds, someone is going to say, “50% of people had a …
Weekly reads: Vertex stem cells for diabetes update, new CRISPR , immortality Read More »
Totipotency literally means all powerful, but it refers in biology to specific cells. These cells can make every type of cell in the body of an organism plus the extraembryonic tissues needed for development. This includes humans. So if you could reprogram human cells like blood or skin cells into totipotent stem cells, you might …
Weekly reads: gene therapy nod, Nature pub ethics, CRISPR LDL Read More »
When people find out that I’m a stem cell researcher, a common question is whether there’s something they can take that is a stem cell activator. I’ve written before about whether there are stem cell boosts that one can do to try to be healthier. Sleep, stem cell activator and clonality Mostly when I bring …
Weekly reads: stem cell activator, sleep & stem cells, clonal hematopoiesis Read More »
Eight years ago two new Nature papers broke on the scene reporting supposed STAP cells with one of the senior authors, Charles Vacanti of Harvard, most well known previously for making the so-called “Vacanti mouse” along with his brother Joseph. The Vacanti mouse had a bioengineered human ear growing on its back. While STAP cells …
Recommended reads: Dux, 3D printed ear brings Vacanti mouse to mind, AMD, more Read More »