The stem cell field has puzzled on and off for years over a constellation of papers on purported stem cells including so-called VSEL and MUSE cells. Many of us haven’t been convinced that these are real stem cells. I see VSEL and MUSE fitting into a larger pattern of dubious stem cell claims including the STAP cell debacle. Now the whole idea of VSEL, which stands for very small embryonic-like stem cells, has taken a big and perhaps final blow. The primary VSEL proponents, the …Read More
fake stem cells
Now that it appears that the authors have all consented to eventually have both of their STAP cell Nature papers retracted, what’s next for STAP? Who knows, but below is my attempt at a top 10 list of STAP predictions looking ahead. I hope I’m wrong about several of them. 10. No insight will come from Nature on the STAP review or editorial process and there will be no indication from them that anything went wrong at their level. I predict the journal will …Read More
Very small embryonic-like stem cells aka VSELs are reported to be tiny adult stem cells that are pluripotent or non-existent depending on whom you talk to most recently or which paper you just read. These very controversial cells (which I once compared to the Sasquatch) have a wildly fluctuating history with their existence on multiple occasions apparently being proven and then later disproven. The latter fate of them being not existing was most recently shown rather convincingly by Irv Weissman’s lab and the former fate …Read More
Are MUSE cells for real? Stem cells come in different types that vary in a key property called “potency”, but very few are pluripotent. The more potency, the greater the flexibility of a stem cell to make other cell types. Flexibility in the cellular world is power. The most powerful stem cells generally used are called “pluripotent”, which refers to a special kind of stem cell that can make all 200+ other types of cells in the body through differentiation. Pluripotent stem cells are hard …Read More