We in the stem cell field should call this past week: A Nightmare on Stem Street. I can’t think of many weeks that have been worse for the stem cell field than this past one. I’m a new week is starting soon. It was a real nightmare, although I wish it was just something fictional […]
After nightmare stem cell week, some good news? Read More »
A small group of the STAP authors via RIKEN have now released a detailed protocol also available at Nature Protocol Exchange for making STAP stem cells entitled “Essential technical tips for STAP cell conversion culture from somatic cells”. This comes about 5 weeks after publication of their Nature STAP stem cell papers. 2020 update: With the 4th and
Reactions to RIKEN’s STAP cell protocol Read More »
This is a crowdsource page for people who want to post their findings on their attempts to validate the STAP stem cell ( ＳＴＡＰ細胞) method. I’m going to color successful or even moderately encouraging reports green and failures/discouraging results in red. *For those with longer attention spans, see some additional important considerations for this crowdsourcing effort at
You can jailbreak your iPhone, but perhaps you can jailbreak a cell too to turn it into a stem cell. In his very cool talk up here at the Till & McCulloch Meeting on Stem Cells yesterday, Andras Nagy characterized the reprogramming process to make iPS cells as “jailbreaking” cell fate. Nagy described some intriguing studies done on
Jailbreak Cell Fate to Reprogram Stem Cells Read More »
What is “radically deterministic” cellular reprogramming? Jacob Hanna’s lab recently published a very high profile Nature paper on nearly 100% efficient iPS cell formation based on targeting a factor called Mbd3. This super efficiency is a major departure from past reported efficiencies. This morning here at the Till & McCulloch Stem Cell Meeting in Banff,
Jacob Hanna on Radically Deterministic Reprogramming @TMM2013 Read More »
I’m doing a series of posts on my recent conversation with BioTime CEO and pioneer of the stem cell field, Dr. Mike West. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 on Geron, ACT, and the history of the pluripotent stem cell field, particularly embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Today in Part 3, I am focusing on
Mike West Interview Part 3: key flaw in stem cell field Read More »
One of my favorite stem cell scientists is Jeanne Loring of Scripps. She does great science and when you ask her questions, she frankly states her opinions and is clearly a gifted educator at heart too. Below is a Q&A interview I did with Jeanne on key issues of clinical translation of iPS cells. You
Jeanne Loring interview: optimism on clinical translation of IPS cells Read More »
One of the more exciting stem cell biotechs out there today is Advanced Cell Technology (ACT). At this time ACT has the only two ES cell-based FDA-approved clinical trials ongoing and so far they have looked quite promising in terms of preliminary safety data. However, ACT has much more in the pipeline including potentially iPS
Interview with Gary Rabin of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) Read More »
A relatively newly recognized, important player in the stem cell field is a molecule called histone H3.3. Histones are key components of chromatin with integral roles in regulating almost all aspects of cell behavior through orchestrating functions such as transcription and chromosome segregation. Histone H3.3 knockout My lab has just (April 9) published new studies
Histone H3.3: giving cells epigenetic flexibility Read More »
A few days ago I had a long, very enjoyable phone conversation with the father of the mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) field, Dr. Arnold Caplan. Dr. Caplan is Professor of Biology, Director Skeletal Research Center at Case Western. He coined the phrase “mesenchymal stem cell” in the late 1980s. I’m going to break the interview
Insightful interview with Arnold Caplan: Part 1: MSC history, nomenclature, & properties Read More »