It’s always exciting when your lab has a new paper and my team just published a study knocking out the H3f3a gene in mice, which codes for histone H3.3 protein. We found that loss of this gene leads to lethality at a late stage of embryonic development. There were also indications of more specific phenotypes …
Weekly reads: H3.3 on the brain, Texas bill, HSCs Read More »
Does aging do something to time so it seems like as you get older that time goes by faster? Remember as a little kid when summer seemed to last forever and car rides could be agonizingly long? I’ve heard two theories on this. One is that the brain’s baseline of activity slows down with aging …
Weekly stem cell reads: aging & cells, iPS cell mutations, gut, more Read More »
Organoids including brain organoids are an exciting, relatively new area of research. This technology is having a powerful impact on biomedical science, which is the focus of today’s post. What’s in this post Definition of organoids | Brain organoids | Challenges for mini-brains | Cutting edge cerebral organoids | References Definition of organoids and brain organoids …
When we hear the word senile we might think stereotypically of an older person who has cognitive impairment, but some argue that senility can apply to cells too as they age and that such cells can be targeted by drugs called senolytics. Unfortunately, the supplements industry has picked up on this idea to sell iffy …
Recommended reads: senolytics, cow iPS cells, big CIRM royalty Read More »
Is 2022 going to be any better than 2020 or 2021 when it comes to things in general or for biomedical science? Related to the pandemic? It’s too soon to say but if I had to guess right now I’d venture an optimistic view that overall it’s going to be somewhat better by the end …
Weekly science reads: senescence, alt CRISPR, sickle cell update Read More »
A piece on human tails and how we lost them caught my eye so I’ll start my weekly reads with that. This week I had the fewest Zoom meetings in ages, which allowed me to get more work done in my own lab and more reading. How about that? I even had some in-person meetings …
Recommended reads: a tale of human tails, heart reprogramming, pericytes, microglia Read More »
I’ve been following the research related to human cloning now for more than a decade. Is human cloning more possible at this point? How do we even define such cloning? Did you know there are two types? The goal of this post is to educate you and in the process answer such questions. What’s in …
Human cloning is more likely now but would you take the big risks? Read More »
Could stem cell Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) research provide a potential path to future treatment or preventative measures? The goal of today’s post is to provide a review of the state of the field in this area including possible approaches and challenges. You can watch a video covering the topic by Dr. Paul Knoepfler below on …
One of my main research interests is in oncodevelopmental factors. These include factors that are important both for normal stem cell biology and development as well as driving cancer when misregulated. One example includes the MYC family of proto-oncogenes. When I was a postdoc I got especially interested in trying to understand the normal role …
Weekly reads: oncodevelopmental factors, iPSC cancer vaccine, more Read More »
It was a couple of years back that researcher He Jiankui claimed he made three “CRISPR babies.” No one would think about doing any kind of rogue gene-editing again, right? Not even somatic gene edits. After all, as far as we know he’s in jail. We still don’t know the health risks that these three …
Ukraine clinic plans to sell CRISPR enhancements: hair color, skin, & breast size Read More »