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From Point A to Point Z: thinking outside the box about stem cells

What is the best way to get new stem cell-based therapies to the millions of patients who need help? I would argue that this is the key question in the field of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. Sometimes I think it is easy for folks to lose sight of that and fall into traps. …

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Challenges translating stem cell treatments to patients

Geron-300x2212

It has been a rollercoaster few months between the anti-hESC court cases as well as Geron and Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) receiving the OK from the FDA to proceed with initial clinical trials of stem cell treatments. It’s OK to be excited about the clinical trials and I for one am, but we have to …

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The trouble with teratoma: a stem cell paradox

Teratoma

The trouble with the risk of teratoma presents a stem cell paradox. Stem cells possess two traits lacking in other cells: self-renewal and pluripotency. This duo of defining functions is key to the ability of stem cells to be used to treat patients via regenerative medicine. A paradox exists because while self-renewal and pluripotency are both …

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How many scientist bloggers does it take to change a light bulb?

Stem-Cell-Blog

One question I am frequently asked by readers and colleagues is “what other stem cell blogs or bloggers can you recommend that are written by a stem cell scientist and updated on a regular basis?” The simple but surprising answer: there are none. It’s lonely out here in cyberspace! (2020 update: The good news today …

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Why scientists must be advocates too: Jeff Sheehy

Jeff-Sheehy

CIRM Board Member, Jeff Sheehy, has a wonderful piece in Nature Medicine on why patient advocates play a critical role in decision making on research priorities (hat tip to Amy Adams who first blogged on Sheehy’s piece). Patient advocates bring a unique and valuable perspective to the table. Their role in guiding CIRM research funding …

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Disease Focus Series: Stem cells for HIV/AIDS

HIV-virus-lymphocyte

2020 update: This post from almost 10 years ago on the HIV pandemic and particularly the first paragraph ring differently in the context of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic. Over the last several years, there has been great concern about a possible flu pandemic around the world, but meanwhile the great pandemic of modern history, …

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Anonymous stem cell scientist frankly answers questions about the field

Anonymous-scientist-stem-cell-field

Here an anonymous stem cell scientist frankly answers questions about the field in an interview with me. Of course I have to ask you about the recent U.S. court ruling essentially declaring all federal funding of human ES cell work illegal. What’s your take on this? ANSWER: The ruling has so many flaws in it. …

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Grim reality of the impact of judge’s ES cell decision is emerging

Francis-Collins-ES-cell-research-lawsuit

The Obama administration has announced it will “quickly” appeal the ES cell decision, but I’m not hearing anything about a stay on the judge’s order in the meantime or anything like that. It’s quite the opposite. The NIH, in the form of Director Francis Collins, has finally spoken about the federal judge’s ruling that apparently banned …

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Parkinson’s Disease, promising new results on iPS cells

Parkinsons-Disease-stem-cells

UPDATE: A second recent study, this one in Nature Genetics has found a novel genetic link between the immune system and Parkinson’s Disease. The authors were screening for genomic variants unique to Parkinson’s patients, finding known ones but also a novel linkage. The link was with the HLA region, known to play a key role …

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Exciting stem cell progress on Alzheimer’s Disease

Test-for-Alzheimers-Disease

UPDATE: I have added more discussion at the bottom about therapeutics and how regenerative medicine might work for Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia throughout the world, affecting 10s of millions of people. The cost to society is staggering and on a personal level for those of us who …

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