Weekly Reads

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

Weekly reads: oocytes from males, David Sinclair longevity inc, diabetes, He Jiankui

March 18, 2023 / By / Leave a Comment
David Sinclair

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 …

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Weekly reads: big CRISPR mtg, Mesoblast good news, Neuralink spiked

March 11, 2023 / By / 1 Comment
Victoria Gray, CRISPR meeting

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 …

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Weekly reads: human CRISPR, MRT risks, private IRBs, skincare

March 4, 2023 / By / Leave a Comment
David Liu, human CRISPR

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 …

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Weekly reads: bat stem cells & viruses, Lineage Cell, He Jiankui visa

February 25, 2023 / By / Leave a Comment
bat stem cells, stem cells

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 …

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Weekly reads: He Jiankui disappoints, ALS, Vor Biopharma

February 19, 2023 / By / Leave a Comment
He Jiankui

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 …

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Weekly reads: stem cell niche & AI stumble on health

February 11, 2023 / By / 2 Comments
stem cell niche, klauskaestner

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 …

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Weekly reads: De-extinction pros & cons with Dodo 2.0, CTCF, retraction

February 5, 2023 / By / 3 Comments
Dodo bird de-extinction, de-extinction

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 …

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Weekly reads: ChatGPT as author, COVID pub concern, CRISPR kit

January 28, 2023 / By / 1 Comment
Sam Altman, OpenAI, Chat GPT

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 …

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Weekly reads: reprogramming aging, astrocytes, cartilage, ChatGPT

January 30, 2023 / By / Leave a Comment

Let’s start with a couple of new pieces on in vivo reprogramming. The idea here is to do something like making iPS cells but doing it inside organisms and not quite pushing cells all the way back to pluripotency. Just younger, healthier cells. Why do that? The goal is to achieve a kind of anti-aging …

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Weekly reads: stem cell good news, bad news on sickle cell, MS, IPSCs

January 7, 2023 / By / 1 Comment
victoria gray family crispr sickle cell b

Let’s start with some stem cell good news on evolving approaches to treat sickle cell disease involving stem cells. Then on another related front things were more concerning. Stem cell good news on sickle cell disease, a complication Sickle Cell Disease News reports Adding Briquilimab Boosts Success of Sickle Cell Stem Cell Transplant. This is a …

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