Katie Thomas at the New York Times reports that BARDA has dropped considering funding applications for stem cells for COVID-19. The move is part of a larger shift in funding priorities away from lung treatments and toward vaccine development. The decision has puzzled and even angered some stem cell firms and researchers. BARDA stands for …
BARDA drops funding of research into stem cells for COVID-19 Read More »
My weekly roundups of biomedical news tend to focus on stem cells, but I read more broadly so it’s not just stem cells but also CAR-T cells and a lot more this week. CAR-T cells as senolytics? A team led by Scott Lowe has a new intriguing paper in Nature on using CAR-T cells to …
Weekly roundup: CAR-T cells, exosomes, trout cloning Read More »
The term Regenerative Medicine covers so much biomedical science these days including everything from just about any kind of cell therapy (not just stem cells) to CRISPR gene editing, and with the the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems this umbrella use of the term now includes potential treatment of viral illnesses. It can be hard to …
Update on stem cells for COVID-19, Surgisphere scandal Read More »
I find following both stem cell news and the stream of interesting publications to be kind of fun and thought-provoking. This past week or two has been very busy. Here is a news summary and list of notable pubs. Stem Cell News on Parkinson’s Disease There were a number of interesting developments on the Parkinson’s …
Stem cell news & pubs: Parkinson’s, Freezing, COVID, & More Read More »
The idea of testing stem cells for COVID-19 may be music to the ears of some folks as an opportunity, but to me from the beginning it sounded mostly like a spaghetti on the wall road to trouble. There is buzz out there that some kind of stem cells or other cells will help with …
Field throws stem cells for COVID-19 like spaghetti on the wall Read More »
It’s been a busy week for the cellular and regenerative medicine space for COVID-19 news with some possible ups including for Mesoblast and some definite downs. Starting with the more positive media buzz with have Mesoblast. Mesoblast made COVID19 news “Thinly traded Mesoblast Limited (NASDAQ:MESO) rockets 51% premarket on average volume in reaction to its announcement of an …
COVID-19 cellular medicine buzz: Mesoblast, FTC hammer, more Read More »
Could various kinds of cell therapy help patients with COVID-19? A variety of cell therapies, mostly focused on mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs), have gotten cleared quickly in the U.S., China, and Israel and possibly other countries to be tested in patients with the novel coronavirus. I hope at least one proves helpful. It’s mostly a …
Cell therapy trials for COVID-19 accelerate & some early reports Read More »
To get at addressing what’s the real deal on the idea of cellular therapies for COVID-19, I did a short email Q&A interview with Dr. Sean Morrison. Sean is Chair of the Public Policy Committee at ISSCR and Director of Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern. He was also President of ISSCR in 2015-2016, and …
Interview with Sean Morrison on cellular therapies for COVID-19 Read More »
The novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, have swept the world with few proven treatment options. Vaccines are only recently being rolled out the last 2 or so months, which gives some real hope. While the novel coronavirus-caused illness is generally a mild disease in kids (many of whom don’t even show symptoms), …
Could two stem cell biotechs Athersys and Mesoblast help in the battle against the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19? Stem cells, ARDS, and COVID-19 I’ve already written two pieces about the idea of using stem cells to battle COVID-19 (here and here), the sometimes fatal disease that arises from infection with the novel coronavirus. Older patients …