There is still plenty of reason to worry about unproven stem cells being marketed in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. I’ll start with a new item here in the U.S. on a firm called MD Stem Cells and end with a newly published paper about how things are going in Poland on this […]
Weekly reads: MD Stem Cells, embryo models & headaches, cell therapy trial updates Read More »
It’s mostly been a week of good and encouraging news in the regenerative medicine space including with gene therapies maybe with the exception of some eye drops warnings (more below). There’s realistic hope for an approved sickle cell disease soon. I also see some long-term positive news on hearing loss research. Hematopoietic stem cell transplant
Weekly reads: reprogramming hearing loss, heart disease, eye drops, sickle cell Read More »
Toward the end of each year, I make stem cell & regenerative medicine predictions for the coming year. It’s a fun tradition here on The Niche that goes way back. The stem cell field has changed dramatically as reflected in each year’s predictions. Here’s a list of past predictions with my grades of how they
2023 stem cell & regenerative medicine predictions Read More »
It’s that time of year again when I grade my previous year’s predictions for the stem cell & regenerative medicine space. Overall, I did better than a typical year. I give the 2022 predictions an A- overall. This exercise can be kind of fun but also humbling. For example, I tend to be too optimistic
Grading my 2022 regenerative medicine predictions Read More »
I took a cross-country road trip earlier this month that was pretty amazing and barely thought about stem cell research for the first time in years. We did run across one stem cell clinic in Florida by accident. I’ll write about that trip soon, but first we have our weekly reads including some very cool
Weekly stem cell reads: space, plagiarism, HIV, diabetes, more Read More »
The recent news of Vertex Pharma buying small stem cell biotech ViaCyte and Doug Melton moving to Vertex brought to mind an old stem cell biotech called Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) and its leader, stem cell biologist Dr. Robert Lanza. Years ago, big pharma firm Astellas bought ACT and Lanza moved to be a leader of regenerative
In big shift Dr. Robert Lanza exits Astellas Read More »
The regular emails and phone calls I get from patients asking questions about stem cell therapy are a powerful reminder of the fact that research in our field can be very personal. Sometimes individuals who receive experimental stem cell therapy (or other cell therapies) and seem to have a positive outcome can end up becoming
Overplaying N=1 in the stem cell therapy world Read More »
Sometimes a post here on The Niche (named after the stem cell niche) sparks a debate between expert stem cell researchers and often that gives much more depth to a topic. Such was the case with my post this week on where things stand with stem cell therapy for heart disease. It led to a
Weekly reads: Melton leaves Harvard, Fuji, BBC blunder, stem cell niche, more Read More »
The last few years in the stem cell and regenerative medicine arena have been complicated in many ways. Variables like surging stem cell clinics and COVID have made predictions harder. Even so, trying to make predictions is useful and it’s fun to go over past year’s predictions. You can see my scorecard on my 2021
16 predictions for stem cells & regenerative medicine in 2022 Read More »
The past year was all over the place for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field. As you can see in my scoring of my 21 predictions for 2021, quite a few things were surprises in terms of what did and didn’t happen. Here’s an overview of the top stories of the year in our
Top stem cell stories of 2021: COVID, diabetes, human embryos, clinics in court Read More »