Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D.

Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. is a Professor at UC Davis School of Medicine in Cell Biology and Human Anatomy. His lab does research on stem cells and cancer, especially from an epigenomic angle. He also has been working on policy and ethics matters for many years. The author of 3 books, he also has a popular TED talk on designer babies.

Weekly reads: stem cell cost, trial death, HSCT for MS, Neuralink

So many things have gotten very expensive these days that it got me thinking this past week again about stem cell cost. For this reason, I’ve been running polls asking people what they’ve paid for stem cells and how many therapies they’ve gotten. Before jumping into our weekly reads, check out those running polls on …

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Weekly reads: gene therapy nod, Nature pub ethics, CRISPR LDL

Multipotent & totipotent vs pluripotent stem cells, very early human embryos totipotent stem cells

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 …

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Weekly reads: BioViva & life-extension clinic, RMATs, universal cells

BioViva CEO Liz Parrish in YouTube video.

I’ve written before about Liz Parrish and her life-extension firm BioViva. Now they appear to have connections with another entity called Integrated Health Systems or IHS, according to a new Wired article. Some of what is going on with IHS and maybe BioViva in Mexico seems extremely risky to me. BioViva, Parrish, and Integrated Health Systems The …

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US Stem Cell says it & 10 others face malpractice suits

Mike Tomas, CEO of US Stem Cell

Unproven stem cell clinic firm US Stem Cell and many others are apparently facing potential malpractice lawsuits. How it came to light via US Stem itself is somewhat surprising. US Stem Cell and malpractice notice The news popped up in an SEC filing by US Stem Cell, which I wasn’t even sure was still active …

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Long telomeres link to disease suggests caution on anti-aging push

long telomeres

Are long telomeres better than short ones? What about older folks lengthening their telomeres somewhat or stabilizing the length? Could this counter aging? As with many things, the story is far more complicated than we might hope. For background, telomeres are special structures protecting the ends of chromosomes. I remember as a young student that …

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Weekly reads: stem cells for ALS, cell wrinkles, editors quit

Clive Svendsen, ALS researcher

I’ve been writing The Niche now for more than 13 years and the idea of stem cells for ALS has been around that whole time. Unfortunately, it has been slow going on this front, but there are still reasons for hope. Probably now much more than ever before. I’ll start with news on one path …

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