The stem cell field has puzzled on and off for years over a constellation of papers on purported stem cells including so-called VSEL and MUSE cells. Many of us haven’t been convinced that these are real stem cells. I see VSEL and MUSE fitting into a larger pattern of dubious stem cell claims including the STAP …
STAP cell deja vu? 28 VSEL papers flagged by Bik Read More »
Drugs that restore the shape of the errant protein behind cystic fibrosis (CF) have, over the past eight years, helped the majority of patients, who have certain mutations. Gene-corrected stem cells might offer a “mutation agnostic” option to CF. CF results from a glitch in a glycoprotein with the unwieldy name “cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance …
Can Gene-Edited Stem Cells Treat Cystic Fibrosis? Read More »
Over the years I’ve done a variety of videos that ended up on YouTube. While most of these were stem cell videos, some deal with other important topics such as CRISPR of human embryos. We now also have a dedicated channel on YouTube The Stem Cell Channel. Check it out and follow for the latest …
The stem cell universe is populated by sometimes mysterious acronyms (see an image of a whole alphabet stem cell acronym soup), many of which refer to specific kinds of stem cells including one nebulous type called MUSE cells. I’m not convinced that MUSE cells exist, but oddly there appear to be four clinical trials ongoing …
Dubious MUSE cells are in 4 Japanese stem cell trials Read More »
How does one keep up with all the regenerative medicine and stem cell happenings? There is always something happening in the stem cell and regenerative medicine field ranging from science to policy matters. This post is an update on some recent stem cell happenings that I see as notable or interesting. New Pubs Direct reprogramming …
Stem cell & regenerative medicine news: cool pubs, people, ARM, & more Read More »
Do stem cells for vision loss offer real hope? I believe so, but it’s a long road and must be done right. A new paper in this area generated some buzz on top of an earlier recent pub (mentioned in this post) just a week or so ago about the potential of stem cells for vision …
Perspectives on new stem cells for vision loss paper Read More »
What happens following pluripotent stem cell transplants into the brain? Are human IPS and ES cells going to function similarly in this context? We recently published a new translational paper on the behavior of human pluripotent stem cells when transplanted into the adult mouse brain in collaboration with my great UC Davis colleague, Dr. Veronica Martinez-Cerdeno. …
A new Cell paper from Juan Carlos Izpisua Berlmonte’s group has made headlines about anti-aging across the globe because it suggests that the four core induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC) factors use by Shinya Yamanaka to make IPSC can reverse aging. I’ve pasted the graphical abstract from the paper below and done a quick journal club style …
Quick journal club on IPSC anti-aging paper: cool, but outstanding questions Read More »
By Heather Main I moved to the San Diego from Australia in August 2015, and Paul asked me if I could write something on my first impressions of doing science in the US, as opposed to other countries I have worked/studied in (Australia, Scotland, Sweden and Singapore). If you look at the land size of …
First impressions of the US stem cell environment from an Aussie Read More »
A new Cell Stem Cell paper by Victoria L. Mascetti and Roger Pedersen on human-mouse chimera modeling is quite interesting and important. I really enjoyed this short paper, but I do have a reservation about one way that it is being interpreted. The authors show that human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) including induced pluripotent stem cells …
Perspectives on Pedersen Lab Human-Mouse Chimera Paper Read More »