The Niche’s recommended Weekly Reads on stem cell research and regenerative medicine.
I wrote earlier this week about genome sequencing of famous dead celebrities, pointing out that the trend seems full of ethical complexities. Genome news More broadly, sequencing the genomes of non-celebrities from hundreds or thousands of years ago can be important research. A new NYT piece covers such work on the Swahili people. Such research […]
Weekly reads: genome sequencing, chemical reprogramming 2.0 Read More »
It’s been almost seventeen years that I’ve been a professor here at UC Davis Medical School. It feels like home. I enjoy teaching our first-year medical students each year. Some end up doing research in my lab. Our school recently got a nice write-up over at STAT News by Usha Lee McFarling on the diversity
Weekly reads: UC Davis Medical School diversity, CRISPR, Parkinson’s Read More »
A team led by Harvard professor David Sinclair had a recent Cell paper on reprogramming to fight aging that I reviewed here on The Niche. I thought the paper was exciting and important. Note that in vivo reprogramming was first done more than a decade ago. Sinclair did have a novel fast-forward aging method and overall
Weekly reads: oocytes from males, David Sinclair longevity inc, diabetes, He Jiankui Read More »
Where do things stand with potential applications of CRISPR and other gene editing technologies in patients? Overall, things are looking very positive. CRISPR human trials This week the third big international human genome editing meeting took place in London. The summit addressed numerous potential clinical applications. It was good to see the agenda included quite
Weekly reads: big CRISPR mtg, Mesoblast good news, Neuralink spiked Read More »
It’s funny how sometimes there are many new articles about one general topic like this week with heritable (and somatic) human CRISPR gene editing and related tech. There are clear reasons for optimism in the somatic arena given advancing trials. Germline editing remains highly questionable in my view even just technically. Then there are loads
Weekly reads: human CRISPR, MRT risks, private IRBs, skincare Read More »
Occasionally when I write a post there is an angry reaction to it in the blog comments, which was the case for my recent fact-check of the LifeWave X39 patches. As you can see in that post, I didn’t find convincing data to either back up the claimed stem cell connection. In my opinion, there
Weekly reads: bat stem cells & viruses, Lineage Cell, He Jiankui visa Read More »
I’m sure many of you remember He Jiankui, the guy who made CRISPR babies. He ended up serving three years in jail in China. He seems to be trying for something of a comeback since his release. Were He Jiankui invitations a mistake? Some prestigious places have even invited him to give talks, which seemed
Weekly reads: He Jiankui disappoints, ALS, Vor Biopharma Read More »
What is a stem cell niche? It’s the home of stem cells. The stem cell niche is a fascinating environment. It has many constituents that impact stem cell behavior and even eventual stem cell transplant functions. In today’s weekly reads, we’ll start with the niche as there have been several interesting papers on this topic. The
Weekly reads: stem cell niche & AI stumble on health Read More »
I don’t think de-extinction of animals just for the heck of it like woolly mammoths is a good idea, but what about de-extincting animals like the Dodo? Where humans caused them to disappear? If that’s even possible, is it a good idea? Dodo de-extinction A company is giving it a try. I can see the
Weekly reads: De-extinction pros & cons with Dodo 2.0, CTCF, retraction Read More »
Have you had the chance to play around on ChatGPT, the open AI? It can “talk” to you in text kind of like a person. I have tried it out. It’s quite interesting to type in scientific questions and see what pops out. Often it is high-quality text and solid ideas, but not always. You
Weekly reads: ChatGPT as author, COVID pub concern, CRISPR kit Read More »