This was a busy week for me working on a grant due Friday and a bunch of other stuff including happily analyzing a bunch of data, but there were tons of interesting papers recently including on pluripotency. California stem cell clinic court case on in the background Along the way this week I was occasionally […]
Weekly reads: court case, cancer stem cells, skin, pluripotency, & more Read More »
There has been quite a lot of pubs on research on pluripotent stem cells published lately. These include some more surprising findings such as a potential role for pluripotency-related programming in neural crest development. Here the week’s recommended reads. Neural Crest research: ties to factors involved in pluripotent stem cells Science, Reactivation of the pluripotency
Recommended reads: pluripotent stem cells, neural crest, cancer, more Read More »
A new paper focused on human and other chimeras just came out today in Cell reporting a number of findings, but most strikingly successful generation of human-pig chimeras in utero. The paper, entitled, “Interspecies Chimerism with Mammalian Pluripotent Stem Cells” describes various chimeras including mouse-rat ones, although those have previously been reported. This work comes
Perspectives on pig human chimera paper Read More »
What’s the deal with the tension between José Silva and Jacob Hanna over pluripotency? Researchers probing how to reprogram cells into powerful stem cells (induced pluripotent stem cells or IPSCs) and what the molecular mechanisms are behind this process have become entangled in a conflict. Of course over the years scientists including stem cell scientists have
Silva Comments on MBD3/NuRD Debate with Jacob Hanna Read More »
In a first for the field, scientists have used human pluripotent stem cells to grow miniature brain-like structures (brain organoids) in a dish in a lab (see beautiful image of one of these “mini-brains” at left from the paper). This exciting, pioneering feat, accomplished by a team from the Austrian Academy of Science in Vienna
If I only had a brain: brain organoids from pluripotent stem cells Read More »
I’m doing a series of posts on my recent conversation with BioTime CEO and pioneer of the stem cell field, Dr. Mike West. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 on Geron, ACT, and the history of the pluripotent stem cell field, particularly embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Today in Part 3, I am focusing on
Mike West Interview Part 3: key flaw in stem cell field Read More »
When you want to both know the real history of the pluripotent stem cell-based biotech industry and perspectives on its future, there are only a handful of people to turn to and one of them is definitely Dr. Michael West, CEO of BioTime. I’m doing a several part series of blog posts on a lengthy
BioTime CEO Mike West Interview Part 2: Geron & hESC 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
Jury is still out on purported adult pluripotent stem cells despite new MUSE paper Read More »
I just closed my blog’s poll on what are the most clinically promising pluripotent stem cells. Why close the poll now less than 12 hours after I opened it instead of leaving the poll open longer? You’ll find out soon enough. I can’t resist teasing you readers sometimes. iPS cells were the big winners in
iPS cells top poll as most clinically promising pluripotent stem cells Read More »