cancer

Secret Not so Secret Recipe for Safer iPS cells

IPS cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, Knoepfler lab, stained for TRA-1-60, an ES cell marker., where do stem cells come from?

Just how tumorigenic are iPS cells?  The field really doesn’t know at this point. However, a steady stream of papers have raised red flag after red flag about genomic and epigenomic alterations/mutations that are linked to cancer. Of course, then there is the fact that all the genetic changes actually used to make reprogrammed cells …

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My Cancer: how I became an advocate too

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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 …

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Devil in the details: small oncogenic lesions in iPS cells & ESC

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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 …

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