Want to hear the latest on stem cells?Check out this awesome stem cell podcast series by Drs. Christopher Fasano and Yosif Ganat. These guys deserve some kind of award for this effort. You can listen to their interview with me posted yesterday where we dish on STAP stem cells, blogging, and more including two crazy stories I have to […]
Talking STAP stem cells & more on cool ‘The Stem Cell Podcast’ Read More »
By Jeanne Loring. On Wednesday afternoon at the ISSCR meeting in Boston, Jamie Thomson gave a talk about the history of human pluripotent stem cells. There were probably only a dozen people in the audience of around 3,000 who were working on human ES cells around the same time that Jamie and Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor were
Jeanne Loring’s Thought-Provoking Guest Post on Jamie Thomson’s ISSCR Talk Read More »
Are MUSE cells for real? Stem cells come in different types that vary in a key property called “potency”, but very few are pluripotent. The more potency, the greater the flexibility of a stem cell to make other cell types. Flexibility in the cellular world is power. The most powerful stem cells generally used are
Jury is still out on purported adult pluripotent stem cells despite new MUSE paper Read More »
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) is making a big announcement today about stems, the biggest they say in their almost decade-long existence. Last night I speculated/predicted some possible announcements. Today I’m betting they will announce the discovery of a novel factor called Betatrophin. More on Betatrophin in a minute, but first why do I think
What is Betatrophin & why is Harvard so excited about it? Read More »
Below, guest blogger, John Carbona gives us his account (including pictures) of Day 2 of the Vatican Stem Cell Meeting, which included a talk by Nobel Laureate John Gurdon. Note, you can read John’s post on Day 1 of the meeting including more great pictures here. Friday, April 12, 2012 The Second International Vatican Adult
John Carbona on Day 2 of Vatican Stem Cell Meeting including Gurdon Talk Read More »
I’m here in San Francisco at the annual CIRM Grantee Meeting. As President Alan Trounson said, this is the best stem cell meeting in the world. We had two speakers tonight to kick off the meeting. Let me tell you my thoughts on each one. First, we had Rainer Storb from The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
CIRM Grantee Meeting on Wednesday March 6: fantastic talks by Drs. Storb & High Read More »
I’m doing this series called “The Elephant in the Lab” where I discuss controversial or taboo laboratory topics that people are usually too afraid to publicly discuss. I started with iPS cells (for a description and definition of iPS cells go here) and now have updated this post for 2013 because the field is changing rapidly. iPS
Taboo topics about iPS cells: updated for 2013 Read More »
Did Dr. Hisashi Moriguchi really transplant iPS cells into human patients? The story has the stem cell field abuzz. My mind keeps changing on this one as earlier today I thought the whole thing maybe was a bunch of fluff, but now there is yet another new article (see headline below) in the Daily Yomiuri providing
Yesterday I managed to get to see a fabulous talk by Dr. Edison Liu, President and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory in Maine. I was able to squeeze it in, in between working on my R01 proposal and preparing for teaching histo to the med students here at UC Davis Med School. Dr. Liu was
The iPS cell field has had a relatively quiet 2012 so far, but one recent paper has drawn particular attention in the last 10 days. I’m talking about the paper from Jaenisch’s lab on iPS cells in Cell. Quite a few people are excited, but also scratching their heads a bit as to what this
Jaenisch’s new, complicated iPS paper in Cell: what the heck does it all mean? Read More »