This past week was a wacky and wild one for the stem cell field. All kinds of crazy things happened all in one week. What does it all mean? Stem cells the new steroids for sports? Reports surface this week that NY Yankees pitcher Bartolo Colon, had received a non-FDA approved stem cell treatment for […]
A crazy week for stem cells: what the heck does it all mean? Read More »
Today is Friday the 13th, which is supposed to be bad luck, and it seems to be a bad luck day for iPS cells. A paper came out today in Nature that will be highly upsetting for anyone hoping that iPS cells can follow a fairly direct path to the clinic. The paper from Yang
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Yesterday I ran a cancer stem cells meeting here at UC Davis School of Medicine. We had some great speakers and over 150 participants including our outstanding keynote speaker, Dr. Jeremy Rich, Director of Stem Cell Research at the Cleveland Clinic. One of the ideas percolating through the meeting was that during cancer development, there
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Why invest in stem cells? Ideas are the foundation of stem cell research, but funding makes those ideas a reality. We talk a lot about governmental funding of stem cell research through CIRM and NIH. The funding from these agencies is essential and will undoubtedly lead to new treatments and cures, possibly for millions of
Why invest in stem cells? Progress, Patients, and Patents Read More »
Since Yamanaka’s discovery of iPS cells first in mouse and then in human cells 5 years ago, both made using viral transduction, a host of new methods to make iPS cells have been reported. These methods are quite diverse, ranging from transposons, to recombinant proteins, to plasmids, and to RNA. Often times these new approaches
Why miRNA iPS cells might be the ticket: an A+ paper Read More »
It seems reasonably likely that in the end, the final say on the embryonic stem cell case one way or another will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. While yesterday brought a victory for science and patients and logic, this was just one battle, not the war. The war that opponents of ES cell
How would the Supreme Court rule on embryonic stem cells? Read More »
Who’s who in the field of iPS cells? In this post, I examine the people, journals, places, funding agencies, and companies that are the leaders in the iPS cell field. I start with publishing. Last year we did a post on publishing trends in the iPS cell field. It suggested that the iPS cell field was
Who’s who in iPS cells: scientists, journals, funding agencies, countries, and biotechs Read More »
Six months ago, I published a Top 10 list of questions and predictions for the stem cell field. How did I do? A mixed bag. Below are the questions and predictions from October 2010 (in blue), along with an update as to how my predictions fared. 1) How will Geron’s Phase I Clinical Trial go?
Stem Cell Questions & Predictions: how did I do? Read More »
What are iPS cells? We talk about iPS cells all the time. We are very excited about them. Heck, the web address for this blog is ipscell.com. But what are iPSCs, really? iPS cells definition A simple definition of iPSCs is the following: Embryonic stem cell-like cells that are made from non-stem cells in a
An insider’s guide: what are iPS cells? Read More »
Someone once said that in any war there is going to be propaganda, but what about stem cell propaganda? The same seems to be true for war that extreme right-wing conservatives are waging against stem cell research and researchers. A prime example is an article today in the National Review by David Klinghoffer entitled “The
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