Weekly Reads

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

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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Weekly reads: CRISPR chicks, HSCs, sequencing Mendel

December 31, 2022 / By / 1 Comment
CRISPR chicks

I tend to perhaps over-focus on human CRISPR or gene editing, but other applications including in agriculture are definitely going to be huge. CRISPR in agriculture One that I’ve been following for a long time is the use of CRISPR to prevent cows from growing horns. Why is that a big deal? Just in the …

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Weekly reads: Kevin McCormack passes, HSCs & RXR, Ethics

December 17, 2022 / By / 3 Comments
Kevin McCormack, Paul Knoepfler, stem cell research

Out of the blue this past week we lost Kevin McCormack of CIRM to a heart attack. When I first heard, my reaction was that can’t be, but it is. About Kevin McCormack If you aren’t familiar with him, Kevin was officially Director of Patient Advocacy at our state’s Stem Cell Agency. However, he was …

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Weekend reads: WaPo blows it on COVID, paper-mill detector, adult pluripotent stem cells

December 10, 2022 / By / 5 Comments
"Hofstenia miamia, three-banded panther worms. Credit: Mansi Srivastava and Kathleen Mazza-Curll"

Imagine writing or editing an article for the WaPo about risky, unproven medical interventions for COVID that desperate patients might consider. Then you link directly to the websites selling this stuff in your article. What the heck? WaPo links to risky long COVID “treatments” By linking, you not only are driving customers to these firms, …

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Weekly reads: Gamida Cell, Siddhartha Mukherjee, CRISPR in viruses

November 26, 2022 / By / 1 Comment
Abigail L. Jenkins, Gamida Cell

Hematopoietic stem cells have many clinical applications and a company called Gamida Cell has an interesting product in this area called Omidubicel that may have several applications.  I’m going to start the weekly reads with news there. Gamida Cell and the FDA A recent piece discussed how Omidubicel is progressing with the FDA. FDA extends …

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Stem cells & the philosopher’s stone, P53, thyroid organoids

November 19, 2022 / By / Leave a Comment
philosopher's stone

I hadn’t remembered the history of the philosopher’s stone until reading a new review article about stem cells and aging. Here’s the article. Is the philosopher’s stone to rejuvenate blood stem cells an epigenetic regulator? Nature Aging. This preview kind of piece discusses how inhibiting a specific factor called PHF6 can “rejuvenate” HSCs in mice. …

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Weekly reads: death in CRISPR trial, sickle cell, nose picking & dementia, epilepsy

November 5, 2022 / By / Leave a Comment
CRISPR gene editing

As both a scientist who works on stem cells, cancer, and CRISPR, and a research advocate I’ve been fortunate to meet many patient advocates over the years. Some have been participants in clinical trials themselves. Benefits & risks of clinical trial participation It is very sobering to find out that a clinical trial participant has …

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Weekly reads: KRAS G12C, eLife journal controversy, bird iPSCs

October 29, 2022 / By / 2 Comments
KRAS mutations, KRAS G12C

If you’ve never heard of the KRAS G12C mutation, it’s a particularly frightening mutation present in numerous cancers. Like the MYC oncogene, many people view mutations in RAS as undruggable, but new efforts show some glimmers of hope. The drug Sotorasib has been approved by the FDA to target the KRAS G12C mutation. Here’s a …

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Weekly reads: chimera cat vs. chimeric rat, cheap sequencing, more

November 16, 2022 / By / Leave a Comment
Venus, cat chimera

When you are a stem cell biologist and especially if you do a blog, you sometimes run across very strange things like a chimera cat. In this case, I stumbled on the whole topic of chimeric cats because I was searching for info on chimeric rats on Google. Of course, I was. It’s kind of …

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Weekly reads: upbeat stem cell clinical trials update, CRISPR ups & downs, story of 1st marrow transplant survivor

October 8, 2022 / By / 1 Comment
stem cell clinical trials

It’s always great to read about stem cell clinical trials that are looking encouraging. Stem cell clinical trials Proving a new therapy is safe and effective is so challenging. Remarkably, there are more than 9,300 stem cell clinical trials listed for a “stem cell” search on Clinicaltrials.gov. Of course, not all of these are actual …

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