Interviews

Dr. Drew Lansdown Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Interview

Drew-Lansdown-PRP

Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) has been around for a long time, but patients are often confused by it. In part the confusion arises from how it is marketed, which sometimes includes it being described as “stem cells”, which it is not. However, at times it can be as a therapy with stem cells or other …

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Interview with Sean Morrison on cellular therapies for COVID-19

Sean-Morrison

To get at addressing what’s the real deal on the idea of cellular therapies for COVID-19, I did a short email Q&A interview with Dr. Sean Morrison. Sean is Chair of the Public Policy Committee at ISSCR and Director of Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern. He was also President of ISSCR in 2015-2016, and …

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

ViaCyte, cell therapy for diabetes

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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Hans Keirstead interview on his congressional run, how you can help

Hans-Keirstead-Roman-Reed-1-1

Hans Keirstead is one of the top stem cell scientists in the world who has been doing cutting edge research including on using stem cells to reverse paralysis where he teamed up with super patient advocate Roman Reed (see the two pictured at right), but now he is also running for Congress. How cool is that? …

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New Yamanaka interview gives key insights into future of IPS cells

Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka, the first to produce induced pluripotent stem cells

Where is the field of IPS cells going and how will this impact the overall field of stem cell-based regenerative medicine? Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka, the discoverer of IPS cells, gave a really interesting recent interview to Nikkei that provides some fascinating insights into the future of this exciting technology that is now more than a decade …

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Asterias interview: stem cell spinal cord injury trials advance

Asterias

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with the leadership of Asterias, a California biotech doing exciting clinical research using stem cells as the basis for treatment of spinal cord injury. The interview covers the past (Geron patients), present, and future. I spoke with Asterias President and CEO Stephen Cartt and CMO Edward Wirth. How …

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Interview with Fredrik Lanner who is CRISPR’ing healthy human embryos

ssistant-Professor-Fredrik-Lanner--e1474733944943

In the past year there has been a great deal of attention given to the potential use of CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing in human embryos. An important recent development, described in a new NPR article by Rob Stein, is the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in healthy human embryos for developmental biology research by assistant professor Fredrik …

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Listen to Leigh Turner’s interview on Science Friday on our stem cell clinic paper

turner-leigh

You can listen to my co-author Leigh Turner’s interview on Science Friday here about our Cell Stem Cell paper on the stem cell clinic industry in the U.S. Start listening around the 8:30 mark. It’s great that this paper has so strongly raised awareness about the booming stem cell clinic industry in America as well …

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George Church chat: CRISPR people, Zika, weapons

George-Church

I talked last year about human genetic modification by CRISPR with George Church a year ago. Now we’ve followed up with a long chat on this topic going into much more detail and with questions on recent developments. Each question is listed numerically and then there is a back and forth on that question with George …

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New FDA Interview on April stem cell meeting & draft guidances

FDA-draft-guidance

Below is a my interview with an FDA spokesperson on the upcoming April public meeting on the four recent draft guidances related to the regulation of HCT/Ps, including stem cell treatments. This meeting and the draft guidances could have substantial impact on future regulatory frameworks for stem cell treatments so I thought it important to …

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