Search Results for: science

My concerns about Nature paper on Genome Transfer for mitochondrial disease

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A paper just came out in Nature yesterday entitled: “Nuclear genome transfer in human oocytes eliminates mitochondrial DNA variants.” It’s surely risky of me to say this, but is this paper really a clinically-relevant breakthrough for mitochondrial disease worthy of a Nature paper? The study as science is fine and very interesting, but it seems  quite […]

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Why did urine stem cell paper create global media sensation?

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Every now and then a paper on stem cells lands many international headlines and also captures people’s imaginations. This seems to be the case for the recent urine stem cell paper from a team in China, which has made huge headlines. In addition to mainstream media, the paper was covered in Wired here and also by one

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8 simple reasons not to get unproven stem cell treatments: #3, exclusion from future clinical trials

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What’s the big deal about unproven stem cell treatments, patients often ask me. Why should patients avoid these? Because paradoxically such treatments, intended to cure disease, can have devastating negative consequences for your health. I’m doing an eight-part series, “Eight simple reasons not to get a stem cell treatment”. The first two blog posts were

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Frank panel on hidden dangers of stem cell treatments to patients at WSCS2012

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This morning here at The World Stem Cell Summit there was a healthy, frank discussion of the risks associated with receiving unlicensed, unproven stem cell therapies. Dr. Jim Guest presented first and gave a great talk about the risks associated with stem cell treatments. One such risk that was mentioned is inadequate characterization of stem

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Contentious but wonderful WSCS panel on The Role of States in Regulating Stem Cell Therapies

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I’m here at the World Stem Cell Summit in Florida. I just was in the audience for a great panel discussion on The Role of States in Regulating Stem Cell Therapies. It was contentious but raised almost all of the key questions in this area. There was particularly interesting and vigorous debate between two participants,

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‘Making it up as go along’ & ‘take a shot in the dark’ emblematic of mentality of unlicensed stem cell doctors

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The Vegas trial of Dr. Ralph Conti, accused of dangerous stem cell fraud, is going on and reportedly some of the testimony is astonishing in terms of the attitudes of point-of-care, for profit stem cell clinic disregard for their patients. The doctor is quoted that in terms of the stem cell treatments of human patients

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Surprising human genomic mosaicism means not all your cells have the same DNA

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The field of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) has really shaken up science over the last half dozen years reversing our notion that differentiated cells are stuck in that fate, when in reality they are plastic and can “turn back the clock” to become embryonic stem cell-like cells. Now we have an iPSC paper in Nature,

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Money and stem cell ‘miracles’: Pluristem questioned on ethics

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Pluristem Therapeutics Inc. is a publicly traded (NASDAQ) biotech Israeli company that is developing stem cell treatments based on the use of expanded placental stem cells called PLX cells. The Pluristem PLX drug is not approved for treating patients at this time in any country, however Pluristem has treated a handful of patients via something

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