ISSCR 2016’s first plenary session is focused on stem cells & cancer. I was really excited about this one even before the meeting as this topic is a major focus of my own lab. Here’s the lineup for this plenary with great expertise in stem cells & cancer from across the globe: President’s Address: Sean Morrison, Children’s …
Austin Smith talk at #ISSCR2016: a ground state inhibitor pathway Read More »
A new paper from a UK team yesterday showed that mitochondrial replacement therapy faces a serious and difficult safety hurdle fitting with similar findings from an earlier recent study from a different team led by Dieter Egli, but the UK media and some scientists there are engaging in hype, claiming the exact opposite. They are pushing the unscientific …
Mitochondrial Replacement Hype Goes Nuclear Including by Wellcome Trust Read More »
Campaigns are underway in several European countries against the possible use of genetic modification in humans to make designer babies and one has a distinctly anti-CRISPR tone. For example, in France a group is pushing an anti-GM baby campaign and the same kind of thing is going on in Switzerland, which I blogged about recently. In …
First anti-CRISPR political campaign is born in Europe Read More »
An important new Cell Stem Cell paper from Dieter Egli’s lab points to an inherent, serious problem with so-called 3-person IVF or mitochondrial replacement technology that warrants putting an immediate hold on all efforts to use it in humans. I have pasted the graphical abstract from the paper below. For years a few of us scientists and …
UK should freeze mitochondrial replacement as Egli paper ID’s serious problem Read More »
The Capitol Times in Wisconsin ran a story just before the primary there on Bernie Sanders on Stem Cells, indicating that has held anti-stem cell research positions. It can sometimes be hard to figure out politicians’ positions on stem cells and what actions they might take. Update: See this poll on what people predicted the …
There’s a lot going on in the world of stem cells making for many striking headlines lately. Here are some stem cell headlines that caught my attention. Haploid Stem Cells Created. Could these cells be used to make germ cells? Charlatans and snake-oil salesmen ‘hijacking stem cell therapies’ in Australia In the CRISPR patent fight, the Broad Institute gains edge. The CRISPR-Cas9 patent …
Stem cell headlines: half a genome, Australian snake oil, CRISPR patent battle Read More »
There’s a questionable notion floating around out there in the numerous discussions over heritable human genetic modification. This idea goes that if germline human gene editing goes awry for any number of reasons, scientists could simply reverse it by applying genetics again. The reversal notion does not fit with the reality of science as we …
You can’t retract a designer baby: #CRISPR, social justice, & risks Read More »
Below is a list of upcoming stem cell and regenerative medicine conferences and meetings for 2016. You can see the meeting list for 2020 here. The new year has a lot to offer in our field. If you do not see your meeting, please let me know and I will include it. This list is …
Each year around this time I check up on my past year’s predictions for the stem cell field. For 2015 I made 20 predictions. You can see past 10 predictions lists for 2013 and 2014. It’s pretty interesting to look back at where the focus was in past years and what my crystal ball yielded …
How did my 20 stem cell predictions for 2015 fare? Read More »
By Heather Main This year I will be attending the World Stem Cell Summit for the first time (see @WSCSummit on Twitter). I was surprised when I looked at the program and recognized so few of the names of speakers; which made me question what this event was about, if not focused on stem cell research. …
Good reasons to go to the World Stem Cell Summit Read More »