What if I told you I believe that iPS cells really began in Seattle in the 1980s? Call me crazy? Read on. We hear a lot about how iPS cells were first created in 2006 in Japan by Shinya Yamanaka. I often say this myself. However, as is the case with so much in science, …
How iPS cells germinated in part in Seattle in the 1980s Read More »
Scientists have special ways of using words to insult each other and believe me it can be vicious even if almost uninterpretable to those not fluent in that language. These insults are sometimes brutal or fatal career-wise, but also sometimes ironic and telling of our scientific culture. They are often also not talked about because …
The scientist’s guide to insulting other scientists: elephant in the lab series Read More »
It’s been a big couple weeks of headlines in the news for prostate cancer. Let me help you make sense of it all. I’m a prostate cancer survivor and cancer biologist. Prostate cancer is almost an inevitable fate for men in America and for many around the world, but a significant fraction of the cancers …
Making sense of all the big prostate cancer headlines of the last few weeks Read More »
Many folks believe that if you can kill or otherwise inactivate cancer stem cells, you’ve gone a long way to curing many types of cancer. However the cells have remained elusive. Now, Mick Bhatia’s lab has found that the antipsychotic drug, Thioridazine, has activity against cancer stem cells. The work, published in Cell (read paper …
Please note that this is one of the only instances in the history of this blog that I have retroactively edited a post for what I believe was an error on my part related to what I feel was overly extreme verbiage. I have also subsequently been informed confidentially of more of the facts of …
Texas Guv Perry visits human embryonic stem cell lab at Scripps Institute Read More »
Two articles in today’s New York Times got me thinking about how science can be pursued privately or publicly. I believe that getting that mix of public and private science right will directly determine the fate of humanity. In a pop-science NYT piece, James Gorman writes about how people may in the not so distant …
Lessons from The Hunger Games about balancing science: public versus private Read More »
I’m going to try to do a new feature on Fridays, a TGIF review of the week in stem cell headlines in the news. What’s the good, the bad, and the ugly? What’s been hyped? It was a busy week in stem cells. The good Prostate Cancer Stem Cells. I’d give the recent wonderful Cell …
TGIF: stem cell headline weekly review for May 4 Read More »
Whether it is people or cells, how much control do we really have over their behavior? Very little. The Secret Service is at the center of a huge international scandal involving prostitution and potentially compromised nationally security. Clearly, the Secret Service failed to do their incredibly important job of protecting the President and national security, …
What’s the scoop on stem cell sports medicine? So far the role of stem cells in sports medicine is essentially all hype. We see sports stars getting stem cell treatments that are not approved by the FDA and have little if any science behind them. I covered stem cell sports medicine in an earlier post …
Stem Cell Sports Medicine 2.0: entering the red zone Read More »
The leading cause of death in America and many other countries of the world is cardiovascular disease (CVD) including heart attacks and strokes. In fact, CVD kills and disables more people than most often top killers combined including cancer. The myth that CVD is a “man’s disease” only makes the situation worse as in reality CVD …
Transdifferentiation meets gene therapy to tackle heart disease Read More »