Imagine regularly having someone rub your face all over with the equivalent of a small roller covered with spikes and doused with either your blood or someone else’s and you have what’s called vampire facials. There’s more news that this is a very bad idea. Vampire facials linked to more HIV cases “Vampire facials” promoted […]
Weekly reads: HIV from vampire facials, CAR-T, FDA warns Regenative Labs Read More »
There have been rare instances like with scientist James Wilson where researchers were involved in what I would call major misconduct but somehow managed to bounce back. In a sense, they were given second chances in part by regulators but also by other scientists or supporters. However, after extraordinary misconduct, especially contributing to the death
2nd chances after big misconduct? He Jiankui, James Wilson, others Read More »
Lately it seems like something called Mastodon is on the minds of many a Twitter user. There is a wave of people tweeting “let’s dump Twitter and go to Mastodon now that Musk has taken over!” However, so far I don’t see Mastodon as a solid alternative to the admittedly annoyingly musky Twitter. I do
What is Mastodon & why so far it’s a clunky alternative to Twitter Read More »
The National Academy of Medicine elected a cohort of new members including three stem cell researchers. It’s great to see our field and these great scientists get recognition. The new NAM stem cell researchers include Sally Temple, Connie Eaves, and Tippie MacKenzie. Here’s a little bit about each of them. Dr. Temple is a stem cell biologist
Weekly reads: NAM dubs 3 stem cell researchers, kick the 2 buckets, stem cell homing Read More »
Some unproven stem cell clinics like one called Giostar have multiple locations sprouting up. To me the concern with that spreading is the potential of multiplying risks to consumers. It can be hard to get a clear take on what these clinics are doing too. What’s in this article What is Giostar? | Giostar review |
Giostar stem cell clinic chain review, red flags, & lawsuit Read More »
After all this time writing on The Niche here since 2010, I still haven’t entirely resolved certain blogging dilemmas including when a patient discloses something. It’s kind of a jungle out there on the internet. What kinds of tough blogging dilemmas do I face? I’m just going to give you some examples of the more common
Stem cell blogging dilemmas: patient disclosures, lawsuits, & more Read More »
Something called, “The International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing” has issued a new report on heritable human genome editing (HHGE). The Commission was convened by the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.K.’s Royal Society. This post is my initial take on the summary of
New human genome editing (HHGE) academy report: solid, but key gaps Read More »
Michael Le Page over at The New Scientist reports on a new paper describing the birth of monkey-piglet chimeras. Unlike most such primate embryo chimeras formed in research in the past, these were allowed to be born. A litter of ten from the new monkey-pig research, two of which were chimeras, all rather quickly died
Monkey-pig chimeras pub discouraging for similar human research toward organ transplants Read More »
There’s nothing like stem cell good news and interesting publications to perk one up on a Monday. Enjoy. What recent papers have struck you as exciting? Novel stem cell-based cancer approaches (Part 1) It was exciting when Fate Therapeutics got the first induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC) IND in the U.S. for their IPSC-derived natural killer cell
Stem cell good news: novel cancer work, new CA bills, Alzheimer’s, & more pubs Read More »
What happens if we mix stem cells with populism? From a populist view of stem cells, everyday patients should be able to do nearly anything they want with stem cells without any governmental interference or excessive expense. Even stem cells not proven to be safe or effective. This can sound like an appealing idea to
Popping the bubble of stem cell populism Read More »