A big, fat elephant in “the room” of the commercial stem cell field today is something called stromal vascular fraction or SVF, made from human fat tissue or adipose. If you care at all about stem cells or the stem cell field more generally, you had better educate yourself on SVF. You can learn a …
Law and Order SVF: what is stromal vascular fraction? Read More »
What’s the deal with this week’s FDA Warning Letter to 23andMe? First some background. I’m a researcher who studies stem and cancer cell genomics and epigenomics. I’m also a human being who has battled prostate cancer and is curious about my genome. With this background, I decided some time ago to take the plunge and experience what …
23andMe and the FDA: Perspectives on Warning Letter Read More »
Congratulations to Dr. Elena Cattaneo, the winner of the 2013 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. Her lab studies neural stem cells, particularly as they relate to developing new therapies for Huntington’s Disease. Cattaneo is Director and Co-Founder of the Unistem, the Centre for Stem Cell Research at the University of Milano, Italy. She …
Stem Cell Person of the Year 2013: Elena Cattaneo Read More »
Ben Paylor has made some awesome animated stem cell videos for educational outreach via his project called StemCellShorts supported in part by the Stem Cell Network. These videos are narrated by true scholars of the field and are a very effective means for teaching about stem cells. I really enjoyed them and highly recommend them …
StemCellShorts Videos Cool & Powerful Tools for Stem Cell Outreach Read More »
If there was one stem cell meeting I would absolutely not want to miss next month in November if at all possible, it is the 2013 World Alliance Forum “Future of Stem Cells” in San Francisco. Are you going? Win free tickets to this meeting here! Unfortunately I have a conflict so I will this …
World Alliance Forum “Future of Stem Cells” features Shinya Yamanaka Read More »
Is a treatment based on stem cells for Parkinson’s Disease on the horizon? A Japanese team of researchers led by Dr. Jun Takahashi, professor at Kyoto University is reportedly aiming to start on human studies of an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-based treatment for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) as early as fiscal year (FY) 2014. In …
Trial of Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease on Horizon Read More »
Yesterday’s report of human therapeutic cloning to make embryonic stem (ES) cell lines is a big deal. I support the work and I believe it is very important. People’s reactions to it vary wildly depending on their agendas of course. This post is a no-nonsense overview of the main points. My overall point. This is …
5 human therapeutic cloning talking points dissected Read More »
I finally got a chance to read the Cell paper by the Melton team on Betatrophin and it is quite cool. Update — Unfortunately the Betatrophin paper discussed here originally back in 2013 has now largely been proven to have come to incorrect conclusions (for more read this). I think one big question is whether …
More on Betatrophin, my take on the Cell paper, and a video Read More »
UPDATE: Unfortunately the Betatrophin paper discussed here originally back in 2013 has now largely been proven to have come to incorrect conclusions (for more read this). Today Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) reported the discovery, in a paper in Cell by Harvard Professor Doug Melton, of a powerful new hormone called Betatrophin that can stimulate …
I’ve been fortunate to interview some of the greats in the stem cell field for this blog and host debates between key players. Please note that just because I have interviewed folks does not mean I agree with them or that they agree with me. The point is to establish dialogue on key issues. As …