A new piece came out yesterday on the Wellcome Trust Blog, strongly promoting approval of so-called “3-Parent IVF” or Mitochondrial Transfer technology by the UK Parliament. As I written in the past (here and here), my view is that this would be a mistake at this time. There is room for respectful disagreement on this issue between scientists, …
Every year I do a list of top predictions for the coming year for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field. For example, you can see past top 10 predictions lists for 2013 and 2014. What’s in store for 2015 from the stem cell crystal ball? There is so much going on that for this …
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 …
Many of this The Niche‘s readers ask about what my own lab’s research. What is the focus of the research of the Knoepfler Lab? You can go check out our lab website, but I thought it might be time to blog about what we are all about as a lab and what we have been …
An FDA committee began a meeting yesterday that continues today to consider permitting new assisted reproduction-based “3-parent” technology that could address mitochondrial disorders, a serious human health problem. The technology also raises complex health issues of its own and invokes ethical questions. The goal of the FDA meeting is articulated this way: “the committee will …
Why the FDA should not green-light 3-parent reproduction Read More »
One of the questions I get asked most often is whether induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are well on their way to replacing ES (embryonic stem) cells. My answer? No. Not yet. iPS cells are great, but the original notion pushed by some that iPS cells would somehow replace ES cells, which would be …
Primary challenges facing iPS cells in late 2012 Read More »
Medulloblastoma is the most common pediatric brain tumor. However, treatments for children who are diagnosed with so-called medullos have not evolved much over the years and are largely similar to treatments given to adults for other brain tumors. One frequent event in certain medullos is amplification of two members of the MYC family of oncogenes …
New medulloblastoma paper suggests novel avenues to treat this childhood cancer Read More »
TGIF It’s been a wild week on this blog with many thoughts going out to the future of stem cells in Texas. What about stem cell headlines of the week? Some wildness there too and lots of discussion of translational applications, which is exciting. This week let’s start in reverse order with the ugly and …
TGIF: good, bad, ugly stem cell headlines of week of May 25 Read More »