As we have blogged before, there are a host of different beliefs about embryonic stem cell research and about when life begins. This diversity of perspectives is sprinkled across the globe. Too often in the U.S. people take an ethnocentric view of this question, believing that everyone else should think the same as they do. …
A perspective on U.S. embryonic stem cell research from Israel Read More »
There is a kind of invisible cultural wall between patients such as cancer patients and biomedical scientists like me, but this wall does not have to exist and indeed it is a negative wall as patients, scientists, doctors, agencies, and advocates can achieve far more together than apart. But the wall is surprisingly strong. Last …
In 2010 I blogged about the exciting finding that researchers could derive most blood cell types from stem cells. You can read more about that here. Here also is a video of Micky Bhatia discussing the findings: Mick Bhatia on turning skin cells into blood. Now comes a new paper (you can read it here) from …
New California Governor, Jerry Brown, today proposed a 17% cut in funding for the UC System. Such a cut would be devastating to California at many levels including education, research, and competitiveness. The UC System is already under extraordinary stress from recent budget cuts that have inflicted serious injury upon the system. The new Governor’s …
Jerry Brown vs. California Education and Research Read More »
Yesterday I wrote about how difficult it is to tell different cell lines apart, including normal stem cells and cancer stem cells, especially since some accumulate accumulate oncogenic mutations that may make them seem more similar. A new paper is coming out that makes this case on a genomic level. Tomorrow’s Cell Stem Cell edition …
Devil in the details: small oncogenic lesions in iPS cells & ESC Read More »
What makes stem cells different? The stem cell field is faced with a dilemma as stem cells and some non-stem cells are sometimes too similar to tell apart. Even worse, stem cells and cancer cells are especially similar. If one focuses specifically on cancer stem cells (aka tumor initiating cells), the similarity between cancer stem …
In this post I give my most interesting predictions about events in the stem cell field in 2011. Update: I’ve continuing doing predictions every year all the way through 2020 and intend to continue. See my 2012-2020 predictions here. Appeals court rules in favor of federally funded hESC research. This is more of a hope …
Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) announced that the FDA has approved their second human ES cell-based clinical trial, a combined Phase I/II, for the treatment of blindness. As a result, soon ACT will have two active, human ES cell-based clinical trials, both using the same human ES cell-based drug. The aim of the 2nd trial is …
FDA approves ACT’s second stem cell trial for blindness Read More »
Cancer patients and their doctors face daunting challenges at the time of diagnosis. Many crucial questions either cannot be answered or rely upon relatively low-tech methods whose accuracy is far from ideal. For example, how aggressive is this tumor? Has it already spread? After diagnosis and initial treatment, it is critical to monitor patients for …
One in a billion: finding stray cancer stem cells Read More »
For many reasons, we have switched our blog to WordPress. We are still ironing out some kinks, but using WordPress will include many improvements! Paul