The Knoepfler Lab conducts stem and cancer cell as well as chromatin/epigenetics research at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Our team has two big picture goals: (1) catalyzing the development of more effective treatments for cancers based on targeting stem cell-related machinery in tumorigenesis and (2) producing safer stem cell-based regenerative medicine therapies. We are particularly […]
Scientific reviews and scores are in for CIRM’s Disease Team III RFA. We don’t know the identifies of the applicants yet, but 3 out of 4 of the top scoring grants recommended outright for funding are focused on cancer. As a cancer stem cell researcher (and cancer survivor) I’m excited to see how well these
Cancer Grants Perform Well With CIRM Disease Team Reviews Read More »
A big, fat elephant in “the room” of the commercial stem cell field today is something called stromal vascular fraction or SVF, made from human fat tissue or adipose. If you care at all about stem cells or the stem cell field more generally, you had better educate yourself on SVF. You can learn a
Law and Order SVF: what is stromal vascular fraction? Read More »
Can Google’s new anti-aging company, Calico, have you Googling at age 140? Don’t sell your burial plot just yet. The idea of anti-aging has been around for a very long time and efforts to combat aging have spanned millennia largely without any success so Calico (apparently short for California Life Company, which sounds more like
Has anti-aging finally come of age with Google’s Calico? Read More »
De-extinction is big right now and some of the extinct target creatures are big too like the woolly mammoth. “Let’s bring back these extinct creatures”, say proponents. Wouldn’t it be cool? I have to admit seeing a woolly mammoth, mastodon, or saber tooth tiger would be cool, but such efforts would not be without consequences
Why I oppose de-extinction of woolly mammoths Read More »
I opened the most recent edition of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and found a striking full-page ad from the FDA. It’s unclear if this is the first ever such advertisement. I have been unable to find a similar one on the Internet at least. Has anyone seen such ads before? The JAMA
Full page JAMA ad from FDA warns docs on foreign drugs Read More »
Osiris, a cellular therapy biotech, recently received a so-called “untitled letter” from the FDA. The text of the letter seems on the whole negative in my opinion, while the company’s public reaction to the letter on the other hand could be seen paradoxically as rather cheery. What’s going on here? With Halloween coming, one has
Osiris FDA Letter: Trick or Treat? Read More »
When Jacob Hanna says “radically deterministic” cellular reprogramming, what does he mean? Jacob Hanna’s lab recently published a very high profile Nature paper on nearly 100% efficient iPS cell formation based on targeting a factor called Mbd3. This super efficiency is a major departure from past reported efficiencies. This morning here at the Till &
Jacob Hanna on Radically Deterministic Reprogramming @TMM2013 Read More »
I have made it in one piece to beautiful Banff all the way from Davis, CA for the Till & McCulloch Meeting. Talk about a change of scene. Davis, CA couldn’t be flatter, while Banff is surrounded by beautiful snowy capped mountains. See image at right from the hotel. Wow. I walked over to the
Till & McCulloch Meeting in Banff: The Road Here Read More »
Yesterday I published a post that was important for two reasons here on The Niche. First it announced the 12 finalists for the Stem Cell Person of the Year 2013 Award. Second, it was the 1,000th post on this blog. How the heck did that happen? Cheers! Happy Friday!
TGIF: 1,000th Blog Post on The Niche Read More »