Search Results for: stap cell

Keep calm & CRISPR on: perspectives on report of human Cas9 immunity

Keep-calm-CRISPR-on

The news that CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in its current form may not work in a substantial fraction of people due to many of us having immunity to Cas9 came as a shock to many, but if you think about it, maybe it’s not so surprising. I don’t see it as the end of the world. A (preprint) from …

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Scientist’s dilemma: find a public voice on big issues or stay silent?

Scientists-Dilemma

There is a scientist’s dilemma: should you speak out on important, sometimes controversial issues in science, where you not only can potentially have positive impact, but also risk being attacked for it? Or do you remain silent? I’ve now been blogging for more than 7 years. I’ve battled the often exploitive for-profit stem cell clinics …

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Nature Biotechnology looking at NgAgo paper amidst reproducibility concerns

NgAgo-China-newspaper

When potentially game changing new technologies are reported such as NgAgo gene editing, both scientists and the public get excited, but especially if such new reports stem from a single paper it is wise to take a cautious approach for a while. The key question is whether the new findings will turn out to be …

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Science press releases behaving badly: time to start tracking their retractions?

Science-Press-Release-Retraction

Over at RetractionWatch, their team does a great job following retractions of science papers. Sadly, the number of published manuscript retractions gives them more than enough material to post several times a day. There’s another phenomenon going on that I think might warrant their increased attention: the possibly rising number of retractions or corrections of science …

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Weekend science reading: fantastic found links including on CIRM

glioblastomaWiki

David Jensen reports on the future of CIRM as a “beautiful machine”. CIRM funds brain cancer research in a big way: Funding a clinical trial for deadly cancer is a no brainer. Glioblastoma is a fatal tumor that needs new clinical approaches so this is exciting. One of the goals of my lab is to find new …

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TGIF: NatGeo sell out, GM Humans, Wild West, Science backstabbing, & more

Wild-West

It’s a shame that National Geographic (NatGeo) has become part of a corporate empire that is not always consistent, to put it nicely, with data-based reality. Can NatGeo maintain its credibility and impact, when it is owned by a climate change denier (quoted for example as dissing folks as “extreme greenies”) who also has other …

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Jennifer Doudna Interview on CRISPR, Human Gene Editing

Jennifer-Doudna

I’m doing a series of interviews with leaders in the field on human germline modification with the first interview in this series with George Church and today’s second in this series is a conversation I had with Dr. Jennifer Doudna, a pioneer in CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Doudna is a Professor in MCB and Chemistry as well …

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5 new cool papers on CRISPR Cas9 gene editing

Cas9-NHEJ

CRISPR Cas9 is a relatively new, powerful approach to gene editing and genetic modification more generally. In the relatively short window of time in which this technology has been widely available for gene editing applications it has already evolved rapidly to become more powerful. Here are some new papers of interest on this technology. With …

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Will Lawsuit Against PubPeer Chill Post-Pub Review?

PubPeer

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 …

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