Despite intense criticism, Colossal Biosciences continues to claim de-extinction of dire wolves. The false claims and hype are such a big mistake. It’s not even necessary either. The firm has a strong scientist in its scientific leader Beth Shapiro. It has George Church. To Colossal, I say that your firm should just say what it […]
What if there was a rejuvenation gene that made adult cells younger without turning them into potentially destructive embryonic, fetal, or tumor cells? It could be transformative for how we think about cellular aging and have many impacts on health. A new preprint posted on June 6th reports on a possible rejuvenation gene. The gene
It’s been a crazy week on the cell and gene therapy front. We live in strange times more generally. I just wrote about a Thursday FDA cell and gene therapy roundtable that generally promoted the idea of less oversight. And far more speed to human use. RFK Jr. was present at the end and spoke.
I had high expectations when I saw the list of speakers for an FDA Cell & Gene Therapy Roundtable held today. Admittedly, earlier when I had seen the meeting announced and no speakers were listed, I wondered how it might go. Would it be like the earlier RFK Jr. regenerative medicine roundtable? That private meeting
FDA cell & gene therapy roundtable emphasis on speedy access has huge risks Read More »
I have been reading up on something called the Los Angeles Project that involves gene editing embryos to try to make new animals. Biohacker Josie Zayner and Cathy Tie are the founders. They even have aspirations to make dragons and unicorns with CRISPR. That resonated with me for reasons I’ll talk about in a minute. What’s
Longevity research is a growing part of the overall regenerative medicine field. Rewinding, when I first started blogging here on The Niche in 2010, longevity was more of a fringe field. In just 15 years, it has become a generally legit area, even if one often filled with hype. It has its share of scammers
The FDA’s biologics or CBER branch just warned two perinatal biologics firms. In a way, these letters surprised me more than any in recent years. Up to this point, I had not seen any posted warning letters from the Trump 2.0 FDA to stem cell clinic or biologics supplier-type firms. Part of me thought that
There has been a sizable downturn for the CRISPR therapy biotech arena. Firms like Editas, Verve, Intellia, and even CRISPR Therapeutics, which has garnered an FDA approval, have had struggles recently. It feels like a disconnect here in a way because overall gene editing and gene therapy have never seemed more promising. But being a
I recently stumbled on something called Helixa Cruises. It kind of blew my mind and not in a good way. As I’ve said before, I sometimes think that the stem cell arena can no longer shock me, but big surprises are still out there and new ones emerge. The other day I had this funny
Unproven stem cells & CRISPR cruises with Helixa Cruises? Read More »
I recently wrote about the upbeat early reports from two allogeneic trials of stem cells for Parkinson’s. Now there’s additional encouraging early news on this front but using patients’ own cells. This is one of the most promising areas of regenerative medicine. Stem cells for Parkinson’s: Aspen Neuroscience upbeat early data California biotech Aspen Neuroscience