There has been much attention to the link between Zika and microcephaly. How does Zika cause microcephaly or does it even directly cause microcephaly. Has the latter been concretely proven? There are even more questions. A cool new Cell Stem Cell paper gives us some key insights. The manuscript from a team led by Guo-Li […]
Zika infects and zaps human brain stem cells Read More »
What are stem cell exosomes? There’s been an explosion of interest in the biomedical world around a recently characterized cell-to-cell communication system that most cells use to talk to one another, including stem cells. In fact the first patient has been successfully treated in Germany with exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells for refractory graft
What are exosomes and can they be used for therapy? Read More »
The FDA has delayed the planned big April public meeting on stem cells until later this year. Basically, the reason given is that more time is needed for stakeholders to comment. It will be interesting to see if the FDA expands the meeting beyond the 1-day format, which was going to allow each speaker only
Breaking: FDA postpones big stem cell public meeting Read More »
Here are some cool science reads to enjoy this weekend. Lab-grown sperm made from stem cells can’t swim, but are able to fertilize eggs, reports Eric Boodman over at STAT. Mouse-human neural crest chimeras: Not only a matter of black and white. Clever title. Antonio Regalado writes about a DNA App Store coming soon to a
Weekend reads: sperm, stem cells, chimeras, STAP, DNA Apps Read More »
We just ran a CRISPR backronym contest here at the Niche blog. What were we looking for in terms of CRISPR backronyms? We were hoping to see backronyms that were in a sense clever explanations using the letters C, R, I, S, P, R for what CRISPR might “really” stand for if it weren’t Clustered, Regularly,
Winner of CRISPR backronym contest Read More »
Medical News Today (MNT) published an article yesterday on a stem cell clinic in Mexico that caused a lot of concern because to many of us it came off as unbalanced and even promotional of the clinic. You can read my post from yesterday on this situation. In response, MNT has now revised their piece and included this
Revised Medical News Today Stem Cell Article Improved But Still Unbalanced Read More »
A new article by Honor Whiteman in Medical News Today (MNT) on a Mexico stem cell clinic really takes the prize so far in 2016 amongst media pieces that engage in stem cell hype. Update; Many on Twitter are calling for retraction of this MNT article. The MNT article entitled “Stem cell therapy: is the US
Medical News Today article reads like an ad for Mexico stem cell clinic Read More »
Over the years some scientists including yours truly have expressed concerns about the possibility that mutations could crop up during the reprogramming process to make induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS cells or IPSC). How concerned should we be about IPS cell mutations? A cool new paper, Bhutani, et al, in Nature Communications from a team led by
For IPS cell mutations, some reassuring new data but validation still key Read More »
A great new piece in The New Yorker by Dana Goodyear, The Stress Test, gives us a window into Charles Vacanti’s side of the STAP cell mess and includes recent quotes from him. It’s a long, fascinating look inside of STAP, the tangled and ultimately tragic scientific implosion that created and then brought down two Nature
Finally, Vacanti’s side of STAP cell implosion Read More »
