News

ViaCyte purchase puts Vertex in driver’s seat on stem cells for diabetes

Doug Melton, Vertex, ViaCyte

When I’m asked about the most promising areas of stem cell clinical research, cell therapy for type I diabetes is near the top including work by a biotech called ViaCyte. Other firms are in the mix too, boosting the overall odds of success in the coming decade. It’s really that promising even though there are […]

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Paolo Macchiarini guilty in criminal stem cell case but does a Houdini again

Paolo-Macchiarini

Dr. Paolo Macchiarini exemplifies how things can change quickly in the stem cell world and go from sky highs to deep lows. Stem cell rollercoasters Over the years, a few academic stem cell researchers as well as some operators in the unproven clinic sphere have had dizzying ups and downs. There’s John Kosolcharoen. His company

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WA AG wins half million from Seattle stem cell clinic US Stemology

US Stemology, Seattle Stem Cell Center

I grew up in the Seattle area so it wasn’t great to see stem cell clinics operating there recently, but better news was the WA State AG filing suit against a clinic there. The action included the clinic parent firm US Stemology along with its leader Dr. Tami Meraglia.  The suit was filed only months ago

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FTC fires off many warnings to stem cell clinics on COVID-19

BioXcellerator-warned-by-FTC-over-stem-cells-for-COVID-19-has-many-promotional-videos.-This-is-a-screenshot-from-one.

The FTC has sharply increased its oversight activities against stem cell and regenerative clinic firms. These new actions include quite a few warning letters. Here is the FTC database for COVID-19-related warning letters. Note that recently the FTC added a new, helpful option to view all of its warning letters here. It’s a good source

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Update on stem cells for COVID-19, Surgisphere scandal

Stem-cells-for-COVID-19-Maryland

The term Regenerative Medicine covers so much biomedical science these days including everything from just about any kind of cell therapy (not just stem cells) to CRISPR gene editing, and with the the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems this umbrella use of the term now includes potential treatment of viral illnesses. It can be hard to

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Stem cell news & pubs: Parkinson’s, Freezing, COVID, & More

Moll-et-al.-effect-of-freezing-on-stem-cells-stem-cell-news-FI

I find following both stem cell news and the stream of interesting publications to be kind of fun and thought-provoking. This past week or two has been very busy. Here is a news summary and list of notable pubs. Stem Cell News on Parkinson’s Disease There were a number of interesting developments on the Parkinson’s

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Have you given up on your local paper? I might with The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento-Bee-stem-cell-clinic-ad-2019

For more than a dozen years we’ve subscribed to The Sacramento Bee newspaper here in Northern California. During those dozen+ years, newspapers across the U.S. have been under huge financial pressures. At a science level, one of the terrible results of this pressure on newspapers has been the vast number of excellent science writers who

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60 Minutes Australia Pushes Unproven Stem Cells for Cerebral Palsy

A stem cells for cerebral palsy 60 minutes ad.

The 60 Minutes show here in the U.S. has done sobering segments over the years on risky, unproven stem cell clinics, but now there is a new episode of 60 Minutes Australia that is the polar opposite: it mostly made a mess of things with its fluffy coverage of the story of a wonderful little

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Mesoblast gets FDA RMAT; List of 10 total designations so far

Mesoblast-e1514313188176

Australian stem cell biotech Mesoblast announced that it has received regenerative medicine advanced therapy (RMAT) designation from the U.S. FDA. This is very good news for the company and an encouraging development for the field. Interestingly, last month the FDA clarified that there is expanded RMAT designation that can include gene therapies too. At the Meeting

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