If you’ve never heard of the KRAS G12C mutation, it’s a particularly frightening mutation present in numerous cancers. Like the MYC oncogene, many people view mutations in RAS as undruggable, but new efforts show some glimmers of hope. The drug Sotorasib has been approved by the FDA to target the KRAS G12C mutation. Here’s a […]
Weekly reads: KRAS G12C, eLife journal controversy, bird iPSCs Read More »
When you are a stem cell biologist and especially if you do a blog, you sometimes run across very strange things like a chimera cat. In this case, I stumbled on the whole topic of chimeric cats because I was searching for info on chimeric rats on Google. Of course, I was. It’s kind of
Weekly reads: chimera cat vs. chimeric rat, cheap sequencing, more Read More »
As we age a higher proportion of our cells end up in a senescent state, which has sparked interest in senolytic drugs and a broader area called senolytics research. The goal of today’s post is to give you an overview of this important area. How much data are there on efficacy or safety? Is the
What are senolytics? Drugs, activator, supplements, risks Read More »
An FDA FOIA dump of text messages of former Commissioner Stephen Hahn suggests that a Texas regenerative firm called Direct Biologics benefited from political pressure on him in mid-2020. Then he was asked again to help in early 2021. This was shortly before he resigned at the start of the Biden Administration. The push came from
FDA leader Stephen Hahn was pressured to aid Texas firm Direct Biologics Read More »
There was a time when I thought transdifferentiation based approaches might quickly move into clinical trials. Then things kind of cooled off. We didn’t see many papers reporting methods to transdifferentiate cells. I still think that this technology, sometimes called direct reprogramming, has major potential. A new paper on making human brain cells this way got
Paper sparks renewed interest in transdifferentiation & clinical potential Read More »
Exosome therapy is a still-experimental cell therapy approach aimed at treating specific diseases using secretions from cells. It’s novel since most attention on cell therapies has been given to using the actual cells themselves. In addition, this approach is a newer idea than using cells as the drug to treat diseases. Interestingly, the term “cell
Fact-checking exosome therapy: costs, risks, & lack of data Read More »
Stem cell biologist Jacob Hanna has a new startup called Renewal Bio. Its goal is to harvest cells or tissues from human embryo or fetus models for clinical use. I believe that their commercial ambitions have so far outstripped careful thought and discussion in the broader community of researchers. There are major risks here for
‘We don’t want to freak people out’: about that Jacob Hanna human embryo model startup Read More »
Histone proteins such as histone H3 are often popping up in science writing and news sometimes includes specific modified forms of H3 including one that we scientists call H3K27me3. What is in this article What is H3K27me3? | The histone code | H3K27ac and H3K27me3 function | H3K27 and human disease | References The goal of today’s post
Histone code series: H3K27me3 & H3K27ac functions & roles in diseases like DIPG Read More »
I have a soft spot for fibroblasts, perhaps because one of the first immortalized cell lines I ever grew was NIH3T3. These are mouse fibroblasts that have been immortalized. They are very useful for a variety of experiments. I used them to study an oncogene called E2A-PBX1. Experience with fibroblasts including 3T3s I was amazed
Weekly reads: fibroblasts, gene-editing, Mitalipov, personhood, embryos Read More »
The last six months I’ve been spending even more time than usual writing NIH grants (and a few others). The last two weeks have been especially busy on this front as I am getting an R01 renewal out the door. My paper reading lately has been mostly related to the grant writing I’m doing. Still,
Weekly reads: NIH grants, side effect of darker hair, FDA warning, CRISPR Read More »