Yamanaka may have found a way to give exogenous Myc the boot from the iPS cell universe. It has always been a frustration in the iPS cell field that Myc, a proto-oncogene, is so important for reprogramming. Yes, you can make iPS cells (especially mouse) without Myc, but it can be orders of magnitude harder, […]
New iPS cell method: drop Myc or not yet? Read More »
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
Cancer stem cells and iPS cells 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 »
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 »
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 »
It’s been more than 4 years since Shinya Yamanaka published the remarkable finding that his lab could transform or “reprogram” regular cells called fibroblasts into a very unique state that was quite similar to that of embryonic stem cells (ESC). Yamanaka called these new cells “iPS cells” for induced pluripotent stem cells. iPS cells Since
The Inside Scoop on iPS cells early in 2011 Read More »
Here an anonymous stem cell scientist frankly answers questions about the field in an interview with me. Of course I have to ask you about the recent U.S. court ruling essentially declaring all federal funding of human ES cell work illegal. What’s your take on this? ANSWER: The ruling has so many flaws in it.
Anonymous stem cell scientist frankly answers questions about the field Read More »
A paper just came out in PNAS entitled “Promotion of direct reprogramming by transformation-deficient Myc“. The main thrust of this paper is that the tumorigenic and pluripotency-related functions of Myc could be separated. It focused primarily on the lesser studied LMyc. The topic of the intertwined good (pluripotency) and bad (tumorigenicity) functions of Myc, addressed
Tumorigenicity and Pluripotency teased apart? Not yet for Myc Read More »