Weekly Reads Archives - Page 9 of 18

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

June 25, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

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

June 11, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

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

June 4, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 1 Comment

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

May 21, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

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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Weekly reads: BioViva & life-extension clinic, RMATs, universal cells

May 14, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / 2 Comments

BioViva CEO Liz Parrish in YouTube video.

I’ve written before about Liz Parrish and her life-extension firm BioViva. Now they appear to have connections with another entity called Integrated Health Systems or IHS, according to a new Wired article. Some of what is going on with IHS and maybe BioViva in Mexico seems extremely risky to me. BioViva, Parrish, and Integrated Health Systems The

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Weekly reads: stem cells for ALS, cell wrinkles, editors quit

May 7, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

I’ve been writing The Niche now for more than 13 years and the idea of stem cells for ALS has been around that whole time. Unfortunately, it has been slow going on this front, but there are still reasons for hope. Probably now much more than ever before. I’ll start with news on one path

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Weekly reads: reprogramming hearing loss, heart disease, eye drops, sickle cell

April 30, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

It’s mostly been a week of good and encouraging news in the regenerative medicine space including with gene therapies maybe with the exception of some eye drops warnings (more below). There’s realistic hope for an approved sickle cell disease soon. I also see some long-term positive news on hearing loss research. Hematopoietic stem cell transplant

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Weekly reads: FDA nod on new cell therapy, gray hair, pong-playing cells

April 23, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

It’s a big challenge to get a cell therapy approved by the FDA and if you look at my list of FDA-approved stem cell therapies, it’s not as long as we might hope. FDA OK on cell therapy from Gamida Cell For this reason, it was excellent news to see that the FDA approved a

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Weekly reads: Sarepta, epigenomics, FDA on eyedrops

April 16, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

The biotech Sarepta has had a complicated go of it with the FDA sometimes related to their Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene therapy efforts. In late 2016 I wrote about how there was some controversy as the FDA approved the Sarepta drug eteplirsen (Exondys 51) also for DMD, going against an advisory panel that had

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Weekly reads: Macchiarini pub, cloned journal, Mammoth genome, tweet of the week

April 9, 2023 / Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. / Leave a Comment

Remember Paolo Macchiarini, the famous-turned-infamous so-called “stem cell surgeon” who ended up in legal trouble and with trial participants who died? Before we get into this we have a new feature for our weekly reads, which is the stem cell and regenerative medicine tweet of the week. See that at the bottom of the post.

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Weekly Reads

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