If you remember xenobots, mobile clusters of frog cells, now you might be interested to learn that some of the same team brings us human cell clusters called anthrobots. Both frog and human cellular clusters are considered types of biobots or robots made of cells. To me, anthrobots seem akin to human organoids or assembloids. …
Dishing on biobots like xenobots & anthrobots vs. organoids Read More »
Every year I give out The Screamers Science Hype Award. The point of The Screamers is to raise awareness about science hype and catalyze new ways to combat it. In that spirit, I award what I see as the most extreme examples of science hype. Sometimes in addition to the one main winner, I give “honorable” …
2023 The Screamers Science Hype Award goes to anti-aging media coverage Read More »
Who is David Sinclair and why is he all over the media related to anti-aging efforts? This post is my effort to fact-check Sinclair’s statements in the context of the broader rejuvenation arena. In the process I also review his most recent paper from my view as a stem cell and cancer biologist interested in …
Review of new David Sinclair paper, supplements & anti-aging glitz Read More »
The idea of stem cells outright curing diseases is exciting and has powerful appeal, but media need to be careful about using the word cure in headlines and articles as we saw this week related to a possible HIV Cure. HIV cure via stem cells and chemo? The big news of the week was that …
Weekly reads: possible rare HIV cure, stem cell chicken, FDA commish Read More »
The amount of biomedical science hype out there is mindboggling at times, but some media or other items really take the cake for being exceptionally bad. Today’s post highlights the worst of the year 2021 as the candidates for my annual The Screamers science hype award. Click on the link in the previous sentence to …
Joe Rogan first popped up more squarely on my radar screen years ago because of a concerning video that’s out there of him talking with Mel Gibson about stem cells. At the time it was one of the most-watched videos on YouTube on stem cells. I took apart that stem cell video and its claims including …
About that Joe Rogan stem cell treatment & clinic promotion Read More »
Today’s post announces the winner of the 2020 The Screamers Science Hype Award. Since this is the inaugural year for The Screamers, I’m just going to give out one main award: Overall Worst Science Hype. Science Hype Award to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn Remarkably, the winner of the overall The Screamers Award for Science Hype …
2020 The Screamers Science Hype Award goes to Stephen Hahn Read More »
Many are jumping on the bandwagon of trying stem cells for COVID-19 or testing other cellular therapies for the novel coronavirus disease, but there have been problems with either the rationales for the trials themselves or more often with how they portrayed. Sometimes there has even been outright hype. I’ve called this collective trend of …
Overselling stem cells for COVID-19: WSJ article & UMN PR Read More »
Meet The Screamers. After being a scientist in one form or another for 30 years and blogging about stem cells and other science for more than 10 years, I’ve seen a lot of science hype. However, some science hype goes above and beyond the usual level to outright smack readers in the face. It almost …
A firm called Kimera labs just received an untitled letter from the FDA. The firm has been supplying non-FDA-approved exosomes to various customers including at least one stem cell clinic without sparking any obvious action from the agency, but on April 10th that changed with the letter, which in my view is quite serious. What …
Kimera Labs FDA letter cites exosomes for COVID-19, more issues Read More »