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 »
An important appeals case is pending not just for the defendants Cell Surgical Network, et al., but also for the FDA. It could impact the stem cell field very broadly too. Cell Surgical Network lawsuit status Hopefully, we’ll get a decision before the end of this year. Cell Surgical Network is a large chain of …
Goldwater Institute weighs in against FDA on Cell Surgical Network lawsuit appeal Read More »
Many of us first became aware of Vivek Ramaswamy as a Republican candidate for President. He was most well-known prior to that as a biotech leader. Given that biotech background, I decided to learn more about him. Surprisingly, his biomedical efforts may have started with stem cells. That caught my attention. This was way back during …
Vivek Ramaswamy & his surprising stem cell start Read More »
Starting last year the FDA has focused much of its cell therapy oversight resources on birth-related firms, including both clinics and suppliers. The latest warnings went to RenatiLabs & Cell Genuity. Warnings to unproven perinatal cell therapy firms Earlier this summer the agency warned Regenative Labs. There have been quite a few letters to others in this …
FDA warns more perinatal cell therapy firms: RenatiLabs & Cell Genuity 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 »
Many avenues are being pursued to get stem cell therapy to the clinic for eye conditions. These different approaches employ a variety of stem cell types. In some cases, such as with iPS cells, the stem cells themselves are not transplanted. Instead, the iPS cells are used to make differentiated eye cells, such as RPE …
Weekly reads: stem cell therapy for eyes research, DMD, cheating death, cancer sensors Read More »
I’ve been more interested in histones and their modifications versus DNA methylation when it comes to epigenetics and chromatin. In part this has just been because I have studied histones so much more. For example, we have been knocking out the two histone variant H3.3 genes, H3f3a and H3f3b, now for a decade. My lab also …
Weekly reads: DNA methylation, H3 K27M in glioma, memory wipe, teeth Read More »
I’ve been thinking more about the steady stream of epigenetic clock research out there. How convincing is the research on such clocks? Do they tightly relate to human biological age? The related notion of turning back such hypothetical clocks to reverse aging is exciting but controversial. It doesn’t help that some are hyping all of …
Is DNA methylation destiny? Diving into new epigenetic clock research 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 feels like I’ve been writing about the Florida clinic US Stem Cell for a very long time. The FDA has been aware of them for about as long. It was only after reports of patient injuries that the FDA at last took action on US Stem Cell and its subsidiary US Stem Cell Clinic. Several …
Did US Stem Cell Clinic defy FDA injunction? New injured patient suit sparks questions Read More »