Weekly Reads Archives - Page 5 of 17

Weekly reads: brain aging, perinatal stem cell clinics, $1M lab meat fine bill

February 18, 2024 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 1 Comment

What happens during brain aging and how can we tell if dementia is coming? Are there particular early hallmarks? There are an increasing number of medical tests for predicting or detecting dementia. Alzheimer’s disease can often be detected early. But what do patients or their doctors do with such information? Until recently there weren’t any […]

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Weekly reads: cool olfactory tuft cells, T-cell therapy, NK cells

February 11, 2024 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

Olfactory epithelium, Olfactory histology

There’s a fascinating type of olfactory cell. These so-called tuft cells have unusual characteristics, especially for nose cells. I had never heard of them before until reading a new article. The inside of the nose may not seem like a very attractive place but there are cool “nose stem cells” in there. More broadly, there

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Weekly reads: Xist & autoimmune disease in women, Crohn’s disease, dumb headline of the week

February 4, 2024 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

Readers of The Niche have asked me many questions about stem cells for autoimmune disease but the puzzle of why women get these conditions more often than men hasn’t come up before here. For instance, why is MS so much more common in women than men? It’s remained somewhat of a mystery over the years.

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Weekly stem cell reads: cancer paper mess at DFCI, H3.3, knees, surfer keeps on posting

January 28, 2024 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

Sholto David, stem cell, cancer retractions

It’s another one of those ‘double-grant’ weekends of grant writing (on brain cancer) and reviewing, but I’m still trying to find a bit of time for some other reading. There was some important news this week including a big mess of problematic papers at Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). Recommended reads Here’s the new WaPo

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Weekly reads: MiMedX & Kimera Labs FDA warnings, NYT on Bryan Johnson, MUSE cell trial

January 21, 2024 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 10 Comments

Placental biologics firm MiMedx and exosome company Kimera Labs both recently received FDA warning letters. The letter to MiMedx was related to its placental biologics products and procedures. The new warning to Kimera Labs was about its exosome products and an amniotic product. Let’s compare these letters starting with the one to MiMedX. MiMedx warning letter

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Weekly reads: Vertex & CRISPR Therapeutics, Arnold Caplan death, MS genetics

January 14, 2024 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 5 Comments

The biotechs Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics have an interesting relationship as biotechs. They are partners are multiple levels but also are very different as companies including in size. There’s been a key development in one of their partnerships. Before we jump into that, please check out the video version of my 20 stem cell and

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Weekly reads: game of clones, super-SOX, Moonwalk Bio, Great Wall’s living skin

January 7, 2024 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

I’m trying to remember the first time I ever heard about clones. It had to be as a kid. Maybe in a monster movie or TV show? Possibly a clone was referred to by the more general term “double”, which is not necessarily a clone. Whatever it was, I’m sure as a kid that I

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New Year’s reads: having a blastema, gene therapy cost, pathogen lab escape data

December 31, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 4 Comments

Years ago I wrote about how I wished humans could form a blastema, which is a special area of regeneration near an injury that drives tissue replacement. For example, when a lizard loses its tail to a pursuing bobcat, if it can regrow a new one that process will depend on a blastema. The same goes

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Holiday reads: woolly dog vs. mammoth, man eggs, designer B-cells, bluebird bio blues

December 24, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

What is a woolly dog? Is it somehow related to the Woolly Mammoth? Before we get into that and the rest of my recommended reads, note that I’m finalizing my list of contenders for this year’s The Screamers Science Hype Awards. Last year The BBC won The Screamers for an article “Baby’s life ‘probably saved’

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Weekly reads: RMAT jump, tissues as liquid crystals, gov stem cell advisor scammed of $650K

December 17, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

The FDA has a unique mechanism called RMAT or regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation. It’s intended to move investigational regenerative therapies forward more effectively. RMAT data I recently updated The Niche RMAT list and it has jumped to 85. The FDA has approved many new RMATs this year. The data on how many applications the FDA

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