Cell therapy companies face many hurdles. I wrote recently about four cell therapy biotechs that have been really struggling. Blogging here at The Niche for more than a dozen years, I’ve seen many companies even go under. That’s bad news for the field, for patients, and for investors. Today I wanted to highlight some cell therapy …
3 cell therapy companies doing well: Vertex, Vericel, & Regeneron 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 »
When I’m asked about the most promising areas of stem cell clinical research, cell therapy for type I diabetes is near the top including work by a biotech called ViaCyte. Other firms are in the mix too, boosting the overall odds of success in the coming decade. It’s really that promising even though there are …
ViaCyte purchase puts Vertex in driver’s seat on stem cells for diabetes Read More »
Some people consider the brain to be equivalent to a living computer and in that sense it’s too bad that computers don’t have the equal of neural stem cells to help them fix themselves. Is the internet one big neural network-like web? There was a quake in the stem cell internet as CIRM’s main website …
Weekly reads: neural stem cells, CRISPR brain, Vertex, cytoplasm surprise Read More »
I remember the first time I ever witnessed human cell division first hand and it was really excitement. I was working as a part-time tech in the Lane Lab at UC San Diego School of Medicine. We studied heart disease and grew human umbilical cord endothelial cell cultures. It was striking to see a plate …
Weekly reads: Vertex hold, new type of cell division in fish, CAR-T Read More »
It’s hard in the cell therapy field not to get excited even with bits of seemingly encouraging news but with N=1 reports we have to be very cautious and that’s the case with news from Vertex on their 1st stem cell therapy for diabetes trial participant. Vertex stem cell therapy for diabetes VX-880: N=1 This …
Vertex upbeat on 1st stem cell therapy for diabetes trial participant Read More »
Some folks can view data from early, small clinical trials too skeptically or overly enthusiastically, and maybe that’s going on with some preliminary results from Verve Therapeutics. Good news? Bad news? I’m going to start with two articles about the same news that have very different vibes. What do I think? On the whole, I …
Weekly reads: Verve Therapeutics, Casgevy UK OK, GDNF, MYC 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. …
People often ask me what are the most promising stem cell therapies in development and new data suggest we should add stem cells for epilepsy to the list based on work by Neurona Therapeutics. I’ll start off the weekly recommended reads with this new mouse paper on cell therapy for epilepsy. Neurona Therapeutics: stem cells …
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 »