CIRM has indicated that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended that CIRM provide funding for training and research on ethics and regulatory issues. In response to this recommendation and with the perspectives of various “CIRM funded researchers and other experts”, CIRM has responded with a new ethics & regulatory recommendation document. I have read it […]
CIRM Ethics & Regulatory Steps: highly responsive to IOM Read More »
Is this a “good” stem cell blog post to write as I gobble down my lunch in between working on grants….hmm, maybe not. Too late! Stem cells are hot all around the globe, but they are particularly scorching hot in certain countries such as the Philippines. There are an increasing number of news articles on
Please pass on bull testicles Soup No. 5 & on stem cell Soup No. 7 Read More »
What are stem cell fraudsters? Two women in San Diego County are heading to jail after being convicted and sentenced for fraud related to stem cell treatments.The women injected concoctions of bovine stem cells from Germany and DMSO into patients. You can read the details of the original arrest here on the FBI website. According to
CIRM is holding a meeting today on how to respond to the IOM recommendations on CIRM operations. I’m a CIRM grantee who is live blogging this meeting. My opinions are my own. The IOM, amongst other things, recommended that patient advocates on the CIRM Board not be allowed to be voting members of the CIRM
I just received a copy of the CIRM proposed response to the IOM recommendations. Regarding what I believe to be the most important element, revamping the CIRM Board (aka ICOC), I was interested to see that CIRM (via President Jonathan Thomas) recommended that all institutional members of the Board no longer vote on whether to
“Solomonic” CIRM Proposal: Institutional Board Members Would not Vote on Grants Read More »
Recently, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) conducted a review of the California Stem Cell Agency, CIRM. IOM has now released a quite lengthy report that makes a number of recommendations on various issues. You can also read a short summary here. Unfortunately, I think that many of the IOM recommendations would be harmful to CIRM
IOM misses the boat on CIRM board Read More »
I’m a fan of iPS cells, but my lab has been concerned about the similarities between induced pluripotency and cancer formation for many years. We just now published a paper that directly addressed the similarities of cancer and iPS cell transcriptomes. These are cause for concern and need to be faced as we contemplate clinical
iPS cells are similar to cancer cells paper, part 2: unsettled reviewers Read More »
It’s been a big couple months of headlines in the news for prostate cancer. I’m a prostate cancer survivor and cancer biologist so I spend probably more than my share of time thinking about prostate cancer and from a number of angles. A few days ago I got a test result suggesting I’m still in long-term
Updated: Do Vulcans Get Prostate Cancer and get surgery for it? Read More »
It’s been a big couple weeks of headlines in the news for prostate cancer. Let me help you make sense of it all. I’m a prostate cancer survivor and cancer biologist. Prostate cancer is almost an inevitable fate for men in America and for many around the world, but a significant fraction of the cancers
Making sense of all the big prostate cancer headlines of the last few weeks Read More »
Why do people have such a big brain compared to other animals? Vertebrate embryonic development is a highly conserved process, particularly in the earliest phases. (note: you may find this September 2020 post on regulation of bee brain size to be interesting.) A wide variety of vertebrate animals including humans start out with embryonic body plans
Why is the human brain super-sized? Read More »