Weekly Reads

The Niche’s recommended Weekly Reads on stem cell research and regenerative medicine.

Weekly reads: embryonic stem cells, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s

Knoepfler lab stem cells

Early during my postdoc I was primarily interested in the role of Myc genes both in cancer and in stem cells, work that later included embryonic stem cells. These cells are often called ES cells. At first I first started studying N-Myc in neural stem cells using a conditional knockout approach. However, soon after I was …

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Weekly reads: BioCardia, HeLa suit, illegal bio lab in CA

mesenchymal cells

A days ago the news came about Mesoblast not getting FDA approval for its MSC product for GvHD. The MSC area has had a rough few years with various clinical trials including for COVID. The “stem cells for heart disease” arena has also had a tough time. Here’s more news along these lines: BioCardia pauses enrollment in PhIII trial …

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Weekly stem cell reads: Google Bard AI issues, fat ball reprogramming, BrainStorm on ALS

stem cell research

It’s great finding stem cell videos on YouTube that are either excellent research talks or provide important information. I recently found one such video by Shiri Gur-Cohen, which I included below. Interesting data there and Shiri is such a compelling speaker. She also won The Niche image contest one year with a cool microscopy pic …

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Weekly reads: Conception Bio & IVG, MYC, Stanford Prez resigns

Conception Bio, IVG

The Bay Area biotech Conception Bio has an intriguing name. What does “conception” mean here? Scientists can make many things from stem cells. For example, lately I’ve written a lot about stem cell-based human embryo models. Another intriguing area is called in vitro gametogenesis or IVG, where Conception Bio is a leader. IVG means making …

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Weekly reads: HIV from vampire facials, CAR-T, FDA warns Regenative Labs

vampire facials

Imagine regularly having someone rub your face all over with the equivalent of a small roller covered with spikes and doused with either your blood or someone else’s and you have what’s called vampire facials. There’s more news that this is a very bad idea. Vampire facials linked to more HIV cases “Vampire facials” promoted …

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Weekly reads: Vertex stem cells for diabetes update, new CRISPR , immortality

stem cell therapy for diabetes

Where do things stand with the investigative approach of stem cells for diabetes? 33% of Type 1 Diabetes Patients Insulin-Free With Stem Cells, Medscape. Not the best headline given the few number of participants here. If your study has only two subjects and one responds, someone is going to say, “50% of people had a …

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Weekly reads: stembryos or human embryo models, new Macchiarini sentence

stembryos, embryo models Monash

Researchers have been making stem cell-based embryo models for years now and a few folks have taken to calling these “stembryos.” Other names like gastruloids and blastoids are sometimes used too. “Embryo models” might be the simplest and best name. The embryo model research has advanced relatively quickly from very basic, not very organized structures …

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Weekly reads: stem cell for hair loss, clinic lawsuit update, 2 big retractions

stem cell for hair loss

There seems to be a never-ending supply of stem cell for hair loss research but a new article invokes a novel mechanism. Stem cell for hair loss research and cell mechanics Here’s a recent news item about a PNAS paper: Coaxing hair growth in aging hair follicle stem cells, NW Now. A common theme is things …

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Weekly reads: cell therapy trials, melanoma, β-thalassemia

stem cell therapy

I’m kind of in grant writing hell at the moment, as many of you may have been at various times, but I’m still finding time to read a little on cell therapy and stem cell research. Here are some things that caught my eye as I work on multiple grants with impending deadlines. Clinical trials …

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Weekly reads: gene therapy nod, Nature pub ethics, CRISPR LDL

Multipotent & totipotent vs pluripotent stem cells, very early human embryos totipotent stem cells

Totipotency literally means all powerful, but it refers in biology to specific cells. These cells can make every type of cell in the body of an organism plus the extraembryonic tissues needed for development. This includes humans. So if you could reprogram human cells like blood or skin cells into totipotent stem cells, you might …

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