The odds of Mitt Romney becoming our next President seem to be increasing. If Romney becomes our next president, what will he do about stem cells? He’ll be an active enemy of embryonic stem cell research. He’ll support the crazy personhood movement. Why do I say that? Earlier this year I had a run in …
If Romney wins, look for extremist Witherspoon Council to control his stem cell policy Read More »
Hisashi Moriguchi, the fellow who made up the story of having transplanted iPS cells into human patients and then later admitted that he had lied, has been fired by the University of Tokyo according to a statement (here in Japanese) from the university. An admittedly fairly weak translation to English by Google is the following: …
iPS cell transplant fraud Moriguchi fired by University of Tokyo Read More »
The strange, doubt-filled story that iPS cells have already been transplanted into human patients is generating a great deal of interest today even as Harvard officially indicates it never approved any such work. According to the original Japanese newspaper report, Dr. Hisashi Moriguchi transplanted iPS cell-derived heart cells into patients, work approved by Harvard. The …
It seems like just yesterday I was blogging about how concerned I was that iPS cells might be used in early phase human clinical trials as early as next year and that would be high risk given safety concerns about iPS cells. Oh, it was yesterday. Now today….. Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the top newspapers …
The great news of Yamanaka and Gurdon getting the Nobel Prize for cellular reprogramming is still resonating in the stem cell field. My heartfelt congratulations to two amazing biologists! Also still ringing in my ears from so many people contacting me about what is becoming a somewhat infamous “empty” third slot that the Nobel Committee …
I regularly do an update on the publication trends in the iPS cell field and these have been posts that readers have found especially useful. Here was a popular update from 2010 and another one from 2011 that included a who’s who of the iPS cell field more broadly as well beyond just publishing. Then …
Part 1 on iPS cell 2012 publication trends: an unusual year Read More »
Next month will be the 1st Houston Stem Cell Summit organized by Robin Young, who also organizes the New York Stem Cell Summit. I’ve been a bit tough on this meeting for a perceived lack of diversity in their program of speakers. I interviewed Robin Young (RY) about the meeting and found his answers quite interesting …
Intriguing interview with Robin Young, Organizer of Houston Stem Cell Summit Read More »
The NY Times has just run a 3-part, high-profile series on the developing biomedical area of adult stem cell-based tissue regeneration and organ transplant. See picture above (from NY Times) of rat hearts and lungs being “washed” of cells to be used as scaffolds for growing new organs. You can read the three articles here: …
Very cool adult stem cell and organ regeneration series in NY Times Read More »
There has been a lot of attention about a Sutter clinical trial to use adult stem cells for the treatment of autism. I did a post on it here. After more reading, I’m scratching my head even more about the hypothesis at the heart of that trial, but I’m no autism expert. Emily Willingham, who knows …
I know. I know. Scientists are not supposed to publicly talk about the question of when life begins and about death, but these are kind of important things to talk about and think about, don’t you think? I do. So here goes…. It’s been a very intense, crazy few weeks for me and for many …