What is the Billionaire’s blood & stem cell club and how does one get into that? The focus of what I’m satirically calling this “billionaire’s club” is on anti-aging and prolonging life. If you have a lot of money and are willing to take risks on yourself toward some specific goal such as staying young …
Anti-aging and the billionaires young blood & stem cell club Read More »
There’s an idea floating around out there called “young blood” to use donations from young folks to infuse older people to reverse aging. I’m skeptical. Imagine an old man and a teenager sitting side by side, with blood flowing from the kid to the oldster in a stab at anti-aging. Sort of like a one-way …
Young blood as anti-aging fountain of youth: hype or hope? Read More »
Parabiosis and aging When it comes to anti-aging science, creepy meets cool with “young blood” in new blood mixing studies just published. The researchers report that blood from young animals literally makes older animals younger. That striking claim is made by both of two independent teams. They published high-profile papers that just came …
For me, this was another week of heavy grant writing but also taking on Google again. How? Over how badly its search engine often performs on stem cell queries. I have a new piece at MedPage Today. It’s focused on the problem of Google Search promoting unproven stem cell clinic websites. Google still prefers stem …
Weekly reads: Google, CIRM, young Swedish bone marrow Read More »
A new Nature paper argues that young CSF fights brain aging. Young CSF vs. young blood CSF is the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain, including those of young mice. The claim is that when young CSF is injected into the brain/CNS cavity of old mice, it makes the aged brains seem younger. And function …
Nature paper claims young CSF fights brain aging in mice Read More »
Some notable newly published Phase II data from the Duke cord blood for cerebral palsy trial unfortunately doesn’t give much reason for optimism that this approach is going to have a substantial positive effect for these kids. The double-blinded, placebo-controlled study did not find a meaningful benefit overall from infusions of autologous cord blood (ACB) for …
Cord blood for cerebral palsy: mostly discouraging new trial data Read More »
How has prostate cancer changed my life? On Sunday I was working on grading some papers before dinner when up popped a “you’ve got mail” kind of message. The email said that my PSA (the blood test for prostate cancer) test results were ready. Yay! I was diagnosed with a serious prostate cancer about 28 months …
Prostate cancer and PSA tests: perspectives of a young survivor Read More »
Vertex Pharmaceuticals has a lot going for it right now on the cell therapy front. For instance, they have the strongest type 1 diabetes cell therapy pipeline after some recent acquisitions. Still it’s not a simple matter to succeed in the cell therapy space even with one therapy for one targeted disease. Trials are tough …
Weekly reads: Vertex, stem cells for MS, Athersys, 900-day paper review at Nature Read More »
We all know people who seem far younger than their age, which feeds into the idea of biological age. It’s often in the news these days and all over social media. Some people who are fighting high-profile battles with aging are also doing something I call “health flexing.” I also called these folks by another …
Biological age, health flexing, & stabs at rejuvenation Read More »
A days ago the news came about Mesoblast not getting FDA approval for its MSC product for GvHD. The MSC area has had a rough few years with various clinical trials including for COVID. The “stem cells for heart disease” arena has also had a tough time. Here’s more news along these lines: BioCardia pauses enrollment in PhIII trial …
Weekly reads: BioCardia, HeLa suit, illegal bio lab in CA Read More »