diabetes Archives - The Niche

Weekly reads: Vertex, stem cells for MS, Athersys, 900-day paper review at Nature

March 3, 2024 March 2, 2024 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 1 Comment

“While still early, these results support the continued progression of our VX-880 clinical studies, as well as future studies using our encapsulated islet cells, which hold the potential to be used without the need for immunosuppression,” said Bastiano Sanna, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief of cell and genetic therapies at Vertex.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has a lot going for it right now on the cell therapy front. For instance, they have the strongest type 1 diabetes cell therapy pipeline after some recent acquisitions. Still it’s not a simple matter to succeed in the cell therapy space even with one therapy for one targeted disease. Trials are tough …

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16 predictions for stem cells & regenerative medicine in 2022

January 4, 2022 January 9, 2022 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 4 Comments

The last few years in the stem cell and regenerative medicine arena have been complicated in many ways. Variables like surging stem cell clinics and COVID have made predictions harder. Even so, trying to make predictions is useful and it’s fun to go over past year’s predictions. You can see my scorecard on my 2021 …

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Vertex upbeat on 1st stem cell therapy for diabetes trial participant

October 19, 2021 July 26, 2022 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 14 Comments

It’s hard in the cell therapy field not to get excited even with bits of seemingly encouraging news but with N=1 reports we have to be very cautious and that’s the case with news from Vertex on their 1st stem cell therapy for diabetes trial participant. Vertex stem cell therapy for diabetes VX-880: N=1 This …

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Quick reaction to milestone ViaCyte data on a diabetes patient

June 25, 2021 June 25, 2021 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 3 Comments

VC-01-post-implant-final1-e1503703572933, viacyte

ViaCyte released encouraging data just now on a patient with implanted stem cell-derived pancreas-like device whose diabetes improved. You can read more about this in the Endpoints piece that I linked to in the previous sentence. Stem cells for diabetes; the ViaCyte update The idea of stem cells for diabetes has been more on my …

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Weekly recommended science reads: stem cells, CRISPR, cancer & more

March 1, 2020 February 1, 2021 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 1 Comment

CRISPR-for-muscular-dystrophy.-Zhang-et-al.-Science-2020.-Screenshot-of-Fig.-2-featured-image

There’s never enough time to get all of one’s science reading done, but we can try! It helps to have a list of “to-read” articles, whether actual research articles or media pieces. In the old days, I remember my mentors saying they literally had “piles” of journal articles on their coffee tables, bathrooms, bedrooms, etc. …

ViaCyte Q&A: CRISPR Tx quick progress, ongoing diabetes trial, & more

September 25, 2019 February 1, 2021 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 9 Comments

ViaCyte is one of the most exciting stem cell and regenerative medicine biotech companies so I like to try to check in with them regularly. Today’s post is my new interview with ViaCyte leader Paul Laikind on recent developments. We had a great chat about the science and how things are looking upbeat for the …

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Quick Q&A with ViaCyte CEO on CRISPR-stem cell work

September 19, 2018 February 1, 2021 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 4 Comments

We heard this week about the encouraging news of a new CRISPR-stem cell collaboration between stem cell biotech ViaCyte and CRISPR Therapeutics. The goal of the team is to make genetically engineered pancreatic derivatives from stem cells that would have a unique immune stealthiness. If such an approach was successful, patients would not need to …

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ViaCyte & CRISPR Therapeutics team up to battle diabetes

September 17, 2018 February 1, 2021 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 2 Comments

What happens when one of the most exciting stem cell biotechs ViaCyte teams up with a firm like CRISPR Therapeutics to use a combination of gene editing and cell therapy? Hopefully a synergistic partnership emerges that in this case can develop an effective stem cell-based therapy for diabetes. You can see a press release on …

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ViaCyte Interview on Diabetes Stem Cell Trials & Cool Role of Gore-Tex Tech

October 18, 2017 February 1, 2021 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 2 Comments

When I think of the promise of stem cells for diabetes, the privately held California stem cell firm ViaCyte is the first biotech that comes to mind now. It has promising stem cell clinical trial work building. Today’s post is a new interview with the company’s CEO Paul Laikind. For past posts on ViaCyte see here, which …

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Statins dilemma: heart & cancer benefits, but diabetes risk

May 12, 2015 February 1, 2021 / By Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 7 Comments

Statins have been hailed as some of the best drugs ever. Given the massive, deadly prevalence of cardiovascular disease, some have even semi-jokingly talked about putting these drugs in the water supply for public health. The growing evidence (e.g. this story) that statins might significantly aid in prevention, delayed progression, or even post-treatment delay of …

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