Inspired by DrugMonkeyBlog, I have gone through and listed the first ipscell.com blog posts of each of the 12 months of 2014. It makes for a surprising summary of the year. Think of it as the 12 months of stem cell blog mass (12 days of Christmas image from Wikipedia). Just for fun, I’ve included both …
With one week left to vote to pick the top 12 finalists for the Stem Cell Person of the Year 2014 Award, we have more than 2,800 votes in so far. From the top 12 vote-getters, I will choose the winner. This is the third year of this award. I self-fund this award out of …
Stem Cell Person of the Year Award 2014 Voting: Who Will Be Finalists? Read More »
Nominations have closed and we have more than two dozen nominations for Stem Cell Person of the Year 2014. It’s an exciting, diverse group including some news faces as well as nominees from years past as well. Happy Stem Cell Day! You can now vote for your choice for the top finalists in the poll …
Stem Cell Person of the Year 2014 Award: Vote To Choose 12 Finalists Read More »
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 »
Comedian John Oliver has an absolutely blistering segment (see below) on Dr. Oz in which he skewers the physician huckster. The video includes incredibly telling Oz testimony before Congress in which the celebrity doctor seems frankly pretty pathetic and cannot answer even simple questions about his selling of arguably snake oil on his show. Oz likes to …
Ear-itating: Awesome Oliver Invokes Vacanti Mouse While Blistering Dr. Oz Read More »
About six weeks ago I had my head shaved to raise funds for childhood cancer research via the awesome St. Baldrick’s Foundation. It was an exciting week because by chance, I also was invited to be the guest on a Sacramento PBS TV discussion show called Studio Sacramento hosted by Scott Syphax just two days …
RIKEN Institute in Japan has formally announced the complete findings of its investigation into the STAP cell research, Haruko Obokata, and Nature papers. RIKEN almost entirely blamed Obokata for the STAP mess in this report and they didn’t mince words. The RIKEN report alleged that Obokata had engaged in two instances of “research misconduct” as …
RIKEN Report Is Virtual Acid Bath of Criticism for Obokata 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 »
There seems to be a never-ending supply of stem cell for hair loss research but a new article invokes a novel mechanism. Stem cell for hair loss research and cell mechanics Here’s a recent news item about a PNAS paper: Coaxing hair growth in aging hair follicle stem cells, NW Now. A common theme is things …
Weekly reads: stem cell for hair loss, clinic lawsuit update, 2 big retractions Read More »