Hans Keirstead is one of the top stem cell scientists in the world who has been doing cutting edge research including on using stem cells to reverse paralysis where he teamed up with super patient advocate Roman Reed (see the two pictured at right), but now he is also running for Congress. How cool is that? …
Hans Keirstead interview on his congressional run, how you can help Read More »
ISSCR meeting review By Agnes Soos Amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Boston, nearly four thousand researchers and exhibitors gathered for the 15th Annual ISSCR Meeting. With presentations from over thirty plenary lectures, and dozens of others featured in concurrent sessions and the daily Innovation Showcases, there definitely was no shortage of exciting research …
Highlights of ISSCR2017 – A Biomedical Engineer’s Perspective Read More »
The idea of CIRM as a dedicated state stem cell agency was one of the things that got me excited about starting my time as a professor doing research on stem cells in California way back in 2005-2006 on the job hunt. Fast forwarding to today now 11 years later, CIRM is still on the …
3 CIRM challenges: search for new prez, funding, & clinical POW! Read More »
Over at the California Stem Cell Report, David Jensen is reporting on some good news from CIRM for California on the stem cell clinical trial front. Stem cell biotechs Asterias and Capricor have stem cell trials supported by 20+ million in CIRM funding each and have been hitting milestones. These trials are progressing and so far have good safety …
Upbeat prospects for some California clinical trial efforts from CIRM Read More »
One of my kids and I attended the March for Science In Sacramento this past Saturday. It was a lot of fun, energizing, and interesting. I found it encouraging and exciting to see thousands of people gathered in support of science. There were tons of scientists, but quite a few people who were not scientists …
Some months back a USPTO court issued a ruling that most interpreted as meaning the Broad Institute had won the so-called ‘CRISPR patent battle’ in the U.S. and that UC Berkeley, Jennifer Doudna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier had lost. Now this week Berkeley has appealed that ruling. It seems the odds are against Berkeley prevailing in its appeal, but frankly …
One of the blogs I’ve really valued over the years was written by a pseudonymous academic blogger called DrugMonkey, but for two months the Monkey’s blog has been silent. Has he called it a day? Dropped the mic after successfully having big impact? What’s the deal? After many years could it be that the DrugMonkey decided to …
Two physicians are central to something called the SCOTS trial, Dr. Jeffrey Weiss and Steven Levy. Patients have claimed negative outcomes after participating in the trial. What’s going on here? SCOTS trial The recent NEJM paper reporting on the blinding of three patients in Florida may be just the beginning. More information has come out on negative …
Dr. Jeffrey Weiss, SCOTS trial, & Patient Claims of Blindness Read More »
The Future of Genomic Medicine conference last week down in La Jolla at Scripps was one of my favorite meetings ever. I wish I had time to have live blogged it more beyond the one post I did about some gene editing talks. Below I discuss 10 top takeaways from this great meeting that I’m planning to attend …
10 takeaways from Future of Genomic Medicine meeting Read More »
Can you make a synthetic embryo, also called an embryo model? Developmental biologist Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz has long been on the trail of this seemingly almost uncatchable quarry. With her team’s publication in Science today they took a big step forward on this path even if some major hurdles remain. You can see her discussion of …
Synthetic embryo or embryo model tech reported in Science: how big is this? Read More »