With the House of Lords vote yesterday, the UK officially became the only country in the world to have legalized human genetic modification via 3-Person IVF. The point of this “mitochondrial transfer” or “3-person IVF” technology is not directly to genetically modify humans specifically, but it still will lead to that result in any case. …
TGIF: I’m working on an R01, but I still try to find time to read a wide variety of papers. Below are the science pubs that I’m hoping to get to this weekend. Less Myc, longer “health span” Cell paper from Sedivy Lab. ESC Histone H3.3 nucleosomal functions Epigenetics & Chromatin paper from Keji Zhao Lab. Human …
TGIF: Biomedical weekend reading includes some cool papers Read More »
One of the most exciting developments in the biomedical sciences in 2014 was the announcement of the new Allen Institute for Cell Science. This new institute, which will be focused on cell biology, received $100 million in funding from high-tech pioneer and philanthropist, Paul Allen. I am very curious about how the institute will tackle cell …
Horwitz Interview Zooms in on Allen Cell Institute: the GoogleMaps of Cells Read More »
A new paper in Science by Bert Vogelstein suggests that a good part of cancer is attributable to bad luck. There are so many big questions about cancer. They resonate with me very strongly as a cancer researcher and a cancer survivor myself (more on my cancer story here). What really causes cancer? Why does …
Review of Bert Vogelstein “Bad Luck” Cancer Science pub Read More »
The Niche is the top, most authoritative stem cell and regenerative medicine blog on the web and the only one to our knowledge written by a professor. It is mainly written by Professor Paul Knoepfler of UC Davis School of Medicine, an internationally respected stem cell biologist and educator. Knoepfler is an advocate of rigorous …
Post-publication (post-pub) review is arguably one of the most innovative developments in scientific publishing in the past few years, including at the site PubPeer. An illustration of the widespread influence of post-pub review is the fact that PubMed recently started allowing readers to post comments about any paper. Post-pub review drove the rapid debunking of the …
Will Lawsuit Against PubPeer Chill Post-Pub Review? Read More »
The following is a response to my Open Letter to the UK Parliament on mitochondrial transfer/3-parent technology from Drs. Peter Braude and Robin Lovell-Badge. Dear Professor Knoepfler, We read your open letter to the UK Parliament and the Science and Technology Committee with interest and concern. We are two scientists, like you, with particular interests …
Below is a list of upcoming stem cell and regenerative medicine conferences and meetings in 2015. If you do not see your meeting, please let me know and I will include it. This list is meant to be as inclusive as possible, but by listing specific events I am not necessarily endorsing them. Enjoy! Genetic …
Sometimes in science there are unexpected threads tying seemingly very different things together. Unraveling the knots in these threads can lead to new insights into important developmental processes and mechanisms of disease. My lab studies epigenomic and transcription factors including a molecule called histone variant H3.3 (more here on H3.3). H3.3 binds to the actual …
The last two years at Nature Magazine have seen a surprising wave of paper retractions. In 2013 and now just so far in 2014, Nature has retracted a total of 14 papers. How unusual is that? Historically, Nature retracts relatively few papers, perhaps just under two per year on average. What the heck has been going on in 2013-2014? Let’s break it …
Could Nature’s 2-year torrent of paper retractions be a good thing? Read More »