Want to win $50 and become a published author? Enter the Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog Essay Contest. The challenge? Write a no more than 500 word, convincing, non-fiction essay on stem cells thinking entirely outside the box. Otherwise, the angle you take is totally up to you. Surprise me. Make me think. There will […]
Stem Cell Essay Contest: $50 prize & essay is published Read More »
Many folks believe that if you can kill or otherwise inactivate cancer stem cells, you’ve gone a long way to curing many types of cancer. However the cells have remained elusive. Now, Mick Bhatia’s lab has found that the antipsychotic drug, Thioridazine, has activity against cancer stem cells. The work, published in Cell (read paper
Just about exactly two and a half years ago I had surgery for prostate cancer, a serious prostate cancer that could not be watched. I could not be waiting. It changed my life. How was my prostate cancer diagnosed at age 42, an age when no one told me I should even be thinking about
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater on PSA testing & prostate cancer Read More »
Yesterday I put up a poll asking scientists how happy they are or more simply “is science still fun?” I myself really find science fun despite all the challenges and headaches, but I wasn’t sure how my colleagues would respond as a lot of people seem stressed and/or depressed. It was thus great to see
Scientists still finding fun and excitement in their work: poll results Read More »
I was at a faculty meeting the other day and one colleague, with a bleak look on the face, announced grimly: “I realized that science is not fun anymore”. Is science still fun for you? Many of us got into science in the first place because it gave us joy and we had a passion
Is science still fun? Take our poll. Read More »
TGIF It’s been a wild week on this blog with many thoughts going out to the future of stem cells in Texas. What about stem cell headlines of the week? Some wildness there too and lots of discussion of translational applications, which is exciting. This week let’s start in reverse order with the ugly and
TGIF: good, bad, ugly stem cell headlines of week of May 25 Read More »
On Monday, I made a big stink about Texas GOP Governor Rick Perry visiting a lab (that of Jeanne Loring) at Scripps Research Institute here in California because the lab in question is a leading group doing human embryonic stem cell (HESC) and Perry is a strong opponent of such research. I thought the visit
Great letter on Guv Perry’s California visit video from the artist Read More »
Here is the second installment in my “elephant in the lab” series, which addresses controversial or even taboo topics in laboratories and the sciences. The first segment was on taboo topics in the iPS cell field. People loved the honesty of that post. Today I am talking about how sometimes scientists kill each other’s papers
Dirty dozen easy steps to killing a paper during review: elephant in the lab series Read More »
Some folks say that paper, hard copy journals are going to become obsolete. But they are still accumulating in science labs, offices, and corridors are a rapid pace. So what do we do with all of them? I’m not talking about recycling them, but some other more creative uses such as… 1. Build a maze
Humor in science: Uses for old hard copy paper science journals Read More »
Dear Governor Rick Perry, Yesterday I came down very hard on you in a post for your visit to the Scripps Research Institute in California and the video that was made about it. (2020 update: Rick Perry is still plugging Celltex after 8 more years!) Maybe I was a bit over the top… However, it got
Open letter to Rick Perry: how Texas can lead on stem cells Read More »