Hematopoietic stem cells have many clinical applications and a company called Gamida Cell has an interesting product in this area called Omidubicel that may have several applications. I’m going to start the weekly reads with news there. Gamida Cell and the FDA A recent piece discussed how Omidubicel is progressing with the FDA. FDA extends …
Weekly reads: Gamida Cell, Siddhartha Mukherjee, CRISPR in viruses Read More »
Lately it seems like something called Mastodon is on the minds of many a Twitter user. There is a wave of people tweeting “let’s dump Twitter and go to Mastodon now that Musk has taken over!” However, so far I don’t see Mastodon as a solid alternative to the admittedly annoyingly musky Twitter. I do …
What is Mastodon & why so far it’s a clunky alternative to Twitter Read More »
As both a scientist who works on stem cells, cancer, and CRISPR, and a research advocate I’ve been fortunate to meet many patient advocates over the years. Some have been participants in clinical trials themselves. Benefits & risks of clinical trial participation It is very sobering to find out that a clinical trial participant has …
Weekly reads: death in CRISPR trial, sickle cell, nose picking & dementia, epilepsy Read More »
If you’ve never heard of the KRAS G12C mutation, it’s a particularly frightening mutation present in numerous cancers. Like the MYC oncogene, many people view mutations in RAS as undruggable, but new efforts show some glimmers of hope. The drug Sotorasib has been approved by the FDA to target the KRAS G12C mutation. Here’s a …
Weekly reads: KRAS G12C, eLife journal controversy, bird iPSCs Read More »
Patients regularly reach out and ask me about something called HSCT. “What is HSCT?” and is it proven as a therapy? Often the patients asking about this have multiple sclerosis (MS) or some other autoimmune disease. I’m not a physician so I can’t give medical advice, but as a stem cell biologist here at UC …
What is HSCT & its possible roles in MS treatment? Read More »
An FDA FOIA dump of text messages of former Commissioner Stephen Hahn suggests that a Texas regenerative firm called Direct Biologics benefited from political pressure on him in mid-2020. Then he was asked again to help in early 2021. This was shortly before he resigned at the start of the Biden Administration. The push came from …
FDA leader Stephen Hahn was pressured to aid Texas firm Direct Biologics Read More »
Exosome therapy is a still-experimental cell therapy approach aimed at treating specific diseases using secretions from cells. It’s novel since most attention on cell therapies has been given to using the actual cells themselves. In addition, this approach is a newer idea than using cells as the drug to treat diseases. Interestingly, the term “cell …
Fact-checking exosome therapy: costs, risks, & lack of data Read More »
I’ve tried to find some time to do some stem cell and other regenerative medicine reading too, but it’s been a busy week of teaching for me as a professor in our new academic year for the UC Davis School of Medicine. I help to teach the Histology part of the first-year curriculum. It’s an …
Regenerative medicine reads: retraction, FDA warning, CAR-T, ARM CEO Read More »
Histone proteins such as histone H3 are often popping up in science writing and news sometimes includes specific modified forms of H3 including one that we scientists call H3K27me3. What is in this article What is H3K27me3? | The histone code | H3K27ac and H3K27me3 function | H3K27 and human disease | References The goal of today’s post …
Histone code series: H3K27me3 & H3K27ac functions & roles in diseases like DIPG Read More »
The last six months I’ve been spending even more time than usual writing NIH grants (and a few others). The last two weeks have been especially busy on this front as I am getting an R01 renewal out the door. My paper reading lately has been mostly related to the grant writing I’m doing. Still, …
Weekly reads: NIH grants, side effect of darker hair, FDA warning, CRISPR Read More »