People have been taking a long look over the last 24 hours or so at the STAP stem cell patent application filed by Charles Vacanti, his brother, Obokata, and others. Any reactions? I don’t know much about patents so I’d be curious of your impressions. New STAP paper troubles? I’m hearing through the stem grapevine […]
STAP 3.0: Patent, New Paper Problems, & Poll Plummet Read More »
Sometimes you think you know a person and they suddenly surprise you by doing something so new that it is shocking or by taking on a new personality. Cells can be that way too. In my book on stem cells, Stem Cells: An Insider’s Guide (you can buy it here on Amazon–it’s very affordable–or also here at
New Ways of Thinking About Stem Cells: Book Excerpt Read More »
This is a crowdsource page for people who want to post their findings on their attempts to validate the STAP stem cell ( ＳＴＡＰ細胞) method. I’m going to color successful or even moderately encouraging reports green and failures/discouraging results in red. *For those with longer attention spans, see some additional important considerations for this crowdsourcing effort at
In two Nature papers (here and here) published today researchers report the astounding finding of reprogramming differentiated cells back to a pluripotent or even totipotent state simply by exposing the cells to extreme environmental stress, creating cells they called STAP cells. Update: see more thoughts on STAP stem cells here. STAP cells: stressing the cell
Review of Obokata STAP cells Nature papers Read More »
My lab just published a somewhat provocative paper (still in unproofed form at this point) arguing that iPS cells are very similar in some ways to cancer cells. How did we get to that conclusion (discussed in this post today, part 1 of the story) and what’s the back story on this paper (discussed in a later
iPS cells are similar to cancer cells: part 1 of discussion of new paper Read More »
I spend some hours each week reading and thinking about the recent scientific literature and I’m sure many of you do the same thing, but do we gravitate towards hyped “holy crap” papers? Every so often, a new paper erupts on the scene. It makes a big splash with a flashy entrance that captures people’s
The ‘Holy Crap’ Effect: Reflecting on Big Splash Papers Read More »
In today’s post, I reviewed a stem cell clinic firm called Docere Clinics. In my opinion, there are some concerning issues here and reasons for caution. One type of procedure at Docere is particularly surprising and raises risks in my view. What is Docere Clinics? | What kind of stem cells does Docere use? | What they
Review of Docere Clinics run by Harry Adelson including total-body injections Read More »
As we think about how much of a role belief should play in the hard sciences such as cell biology, a supposed cell type called VSEL or very-small embryonic stem cell-like cells comes to mind. For these guys it seems to me that the ratio of data to belief isn’t great. VSELs have nine lives. I
The role of belief in hard science: the VSEL case Read More »
There have been rare instances like with scientist James Wilson where researchers were involved in what I would call major misconduct but somehow managed to bounce back. In a sense, they were given second chances in part by regulators but also by other scientists or supporters. However, after extraordinary misconduct, especially contributing to the death
2nd chances after big misconduct? He Jiankui, James Wilson, others Read More »
Eight years ago two new Nature papers broke on the scene reporting supposed STAP cells with one of the senior authors, Charles Vacanti of Harvard, most well known previously for making the so-called “Vacanti mouse” along with his brother Joseph. The Vacanti mouse had a bioengineered human ear growing on its back. While STAP cells
Recommended reads: Dux, 3D printed ear brings Vacanti mouse to mind, AMD, more Read More »