Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In December I attended and spoke at the World Stem Cell Summit in Atlanta. It was a great meeting, but also I had the chance to go visit the Martin Luther King (MLK) Monument and tour his birth home. It was a very inspirational experience. MLK has been a hero […]
Inspirational visit to MLK birth home Read More »
Science blogging is somewhat of a communal exercise. At least, it should be and cool biomed blogs are a great community. One of the most invigorating aspects of blogging is finding new blogs that are worthwhile and edgy. Below I list some of my recommendations for blogs that you might not be familiar with, but
Cool biomed blogs you may not heard of: a drugmonkey, a med student, #CRISPR, & more Read More »
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
Science press releases behaving badly: time to start tracking their retractions? Read More »
CRISPR is the hottest new biotechnology and the top development of 2015 according to Science Magazine. What will the new year of 2016 bring on the CRISPR front? It’s clear there will be more meetings on CRISPR ethics and policy (heck, we are having one right here at UC Davis on May 26), but what
CRISPR predictions for New Year of 2016 Read More »
“Take a Selfie”, has become a catch phrase in pop culture. There is a preoccupation with capturing one’s own existence and key moments in pictures. Another trend is a DIY culture including taking initiative with one’s own health. When combined together we are in the midst of a larger trend in medicine where patients will
Take a medical selfie: a taste of your own medicine Read More »
I just got back from a historic summit on human genetic modification in Washington, D.C. New genetic modification technology, termed CRISPR-Cas9, has both made genetic modification a relatively simple matter for scientists and human genetic modification much more likely in the near future. Heritable human genetic modification could prevent some rare genetic diseases so there
How do governance issues for human genome editing work at the international level? Indira Nath, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, gives a nice overview to start the session. She raised the example of medical tourism and surrogacy in India. She argued for an international consensus on what is permissible on human gene editing. How
Live Blog #GeneEditSummit Day 2 Post #2: International Governance Read More »
Now we have an interesting panel starting on questions of governance on human gene editing. This will focus on institutional and national levels of governance. Pilar N. Ossorio, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Morgridge Institute for Research, is introducing the panel. Key question: how should emerging technologies being governed? Jonathan Kimmelman, from McGill, was the first
Live Blogging #GeneEditSummit Day 2 Post #1: Governance of human gene editing Read More »
The post-lunch session is “Applications of Gene Editing Technology: Human Germline Modification”. Prior to hearing it I’m curious how cautious or gung-ho the speakers will be, or if their gestalt will be one of balance in the middle somewhere. Robin Lovell-Badge, The Francis Crick Institute, was the moderator of this session. He said, “We’d be
Live Blogging #GeneEditSummit Day 1 Post #3: human germline modification Read More »
Now we hear from the scientists on the front lines of CRISPR, covered in this post #2 of the Human Gene Editing Meeting. You can read Post #1 here. Jennifer Doudna starts off the big human gene editing science session on the current state of the human gene editing science and CRISPR. She gave an
Live Blogging #GeneEditSummit Day 1 Post #2: State of the Science, #CRISPR Read More »