There are now so many clinics selling non-FDA approved stem cell offerings across the U.S. that tens or hundreds of thousands of patients are at risk. How did we get here? What if we had a way of understanding how stem cell clinics spread across the U.S. in the first place? For example, an animated …
Animated map video shows wildfire spread of US stem cell clinics lacking FDA approval Read More »
By Samantha Yammine When our TV stops working, it’s usually because one of the wires has come unplugged. We begrudgingly huff and puff over to the back of the TV, track down the loose culprit, plug it back in, and boom: back to Netflix. If you multiply all those wires in the back of your …
Now that in the past few months the FDA has issued stern statements (one this summer and more recently), both final and draft guidances, and at least one warning letter, what comes next? What will the clinics do if anything moving forward? What if anything will the FDA do in terms of actual concrete actions? …
Polls: What will stem cell clinics & FDA do now? Read More »
I started The Niche blog in largely its current form early in 2010, and now 7+ years later we’ve hit two big milestones recently. First, about a month ago, we reached 10,000 comments made on the blog. Thanks for being involved in the discussion on the Niche blog! Second, we reached 7,000,000 total page views …
Grad school…would you do it all over again if you could jump in a time machine? It’s hard to imagine, but it was 24 years ago that I started at UCSD as a graduate student. Think how different the world was in 1993. Now almost a quarter century later, the world of science is very …
Twenty years later: would this dataholic still go to grad school? Read More »
It’s stem cell day! Or more accurately, it is stem cell awareness day. It’s a good time to think about where our field stands and where we’ll be in 10 years. Below, I’ve outlined 10 for 10: 10 things to ponder about stem cells in a 10-year timeframe. Approved Therapies. How many new stem cell …
10 for 10 on stem cell day: 10 issues for coming 10 years Read More »
Robots versus scientists? Over the centuries, humans have sometimes had a fear of replacement, whether it is by another human as exemplified in Dostoevsky’s classic short story The Double (or other literature on doubles/doppelgängers) or by machines, most notably robots. Could we be replaced by robots, artificial intelligence (AI), or cyborgs? In some ways, robots …
What does the wide stem cell and regenerative medicine community think of California’s new stem cell law requiring that clinics selling non-FDA approved stem cell offerings make specific disclosures to prospective customers and that the state medical board keep track of how this all unfolds? You probably already know that I am supportive of the …
Reactions to California’s new stem cell law on non-FDA approved clinic offerings Read More »
Is President Donald Trump a fan of eugenics? He seems to believe that he comes from greatly superior genetic stock. He hasn’t said much of anything about CRISPR ‘gene editing’ technology that can readily alter the genetic code of cells of nearly any organism, including humans, but Trump has a fascination with the concept of …
Two new FDA inspection reports called 483s provide fresh insights on a stem cell clinic, the network of clinics that it belongs to, and adverse events in patients. These reports detail issues the FDA found at the stem cell clinic California Stem Cell Treatment Center and its parent chain of clinics, Cell Surgical Network. The …
New FDA Inspection 483s: Insights on Stem Cell Clinic & Cell Surgical Network Read More »