Chimeras are one of the more controversial and fascinating areas of human stem cell and early embryo research. The notion of a chimera traces back thousands of years to creatures that were mixtures of various animals including humans in some cases. What about a real human chimera embryo? Today, chimera research has the potential to …
NIH suspends funding of human chimera research pending policy review Read More »
The Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte group published a Cell paper today on using gene editing to reverse mutations associated with human mitochondrial disease. The paper is Reddy, et al. and is entitled, “Selective Elimination of Mitochondrial Mutations in the Germline by Genome Editing”. The authors report success using TALEN-based gene editing or mitochondrial-direct restriction enzyme (mito-ApaLI) …
Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte Cell Paper on Gene Editing for Mitochondrial Disease Read More »
What is “radically deterministic” cellular reprogramming? 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 & McCulloch Stem Cell Meeting in Banff, …
Jacob Hanna on Radically Deterministic Reprogramming @TMM2013 Read More »
One of my inspirations as a stem cell blogger was the pioneering Nature blog, the Niche. I was disappointed when it ended in 2009, but it still is a model of what excellence in science blogging is all about. In this piece today, I interview the co-Founder of the Niche, Dr. Natalie DeWitt. DeWitt now …
Interview with Natalie DeWitt, Founder of Nature’s pioneering stem cell blog, the Niche Read More »