Today’s post includes a list of firms/products that have self-reported that they have received FDA regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation or RMAT. Sometimes people call these “r mat” with a space. As of December 12, 2023 there are 85 RMATs in the public domain. I also include FDA data on RMAT submissions via an FDA RMAT resource …
What is the future of Genome Medicine? The meeting by that same name that I’m at down here in La Jolla is all about tackling this question and the line up of speakers today on the first day is amazing. I’m speaking about IPS cells as a basis for personalized medicine tomorrow morning so that’s exciting. …
Live blogging Future of Genome Medicine: great talks by Feng Zhang & others Read More »
Every year I make stem cell and regenerative medicine predictions. Looking at my predictions for 2023, they reflect a wild year but in many ways a good one overall. Below I have graded my 2023 predictions. Overall, my crystal ball gave solid results. Some of the predictions have been condensed to keep things concise, but you …
2023 stem cell predictions grades reflect wild year for regenerative medicine Read More »
Cell therapy companies face many hurdles. I wrote recently about four cell therapy biotechs that have been really struggling. Blogging here at The Niche for more than a dozen years, I’ve seen many companies even go under. That’s bad news for the field, for patients, and for investors. Today I wanted to highlight some cell therapy …
3 cell therapy companies doing well: Vertex, Vericel, & Regeneron Read More »
It’s great finding stem cell videos on YouTube that are either excellent research talks or provide important information. I recently found one such video by Shiri Gur-Cohen, which I included below. Interesting data there and Shiri is such a compelling speaker. She also won The Niche image contest one year with a cool microscopy pic …
Weekly stem cell reads: Google Bard AI issues, fat ball reprogramming, BrainStorm on ALS Read More »
I’ve written before about Liz Parrish and her life-extension firm BioViva. Now they appear to have connections with another entity called Integrated Health Systems or IHS, according to a new Wired article. Some of what is going on with IHS and maybe BioViva in Mexico seems extremely risky to me. BioViva, Parrish, and Integrated Health Systems The …
Weekly reads: BioViva & life-extension clinic, RMATs, universal cells Read More »
Occasionally when I write a post there is an angry reaction to it in the blog comments, which was the case for my recent fact-check of the LifeWave X39 patches. As you can see in that post, I didn’t find convincing data to either back up the claimed stem cell connection. In my opinion, there …
Weekly reads: bat stem cells & viruses, Lineage Cell, He Jiankui visa Read More »
How promising is the idea of stem cells for MS? I have been working slowly as time permits on a piece more specifically about hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for MS. Two new pieces caught my eye on this topic so I’ll start with those. Stem cells for MS NurOwn Found Safe, Shows Promise in …
Weekly reads: stem cells for MS, blood origins, iPSCs Read More »
I have a soft spot for fibroblasts, perhaps because one of the first immortalized cell lines I ever grew was NIH3T3. These are mouse fibroblasts that have been immortalized. They are very useful for a variety of experiments. I used them to study an oncogene called E2A-PBX1. Experience with fibroblasts including 3T3s I was amazed …
Weekly reads: fibroblasts, gene-editing, Mitalipov, personhood, embryos Read More »
The fact that a person for the first time has received a heart transplant from a pig and it was a genetically modified pig made big news this week. Organ transplant waiting lists are a huge problem so if this kind of approach can be proven to be safe and effective, it would be a …
Recommended reads: pig heart transplant, lasers, $11K pub fee Read More »