When I first started this blog back in 2010 the most contentious issue on the more political side of our field was federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It was something you couldn’t take for granted. Some history on embryonic stem cell funding in the US There were times back then when funding of […]
Is embryonic stem cell research a target after Roe? Read More »
David Weinberg over at Science-Based Medicine has his part two of a deep dive into the so-called SCOTS trial, which is a non-traditional pay-for-play study. I highly recommend it. SCOTS trial under the magnifying glass In this piece, Weinberg provides interesting background on the two people running SCOTS. I’ve had many concerns about the SCOTS
Recommended reads: engineered niche, ALS, SCOTS trial, human genome “done” Read More »
Great ideas and talented scientists are not enough as biomedical research needs funding and here in the U.S. that means having R01 grant success. The trends since 1995 are slowly heading the wrong way. The average age of getting your first R01 grant keeps getting older. There is also still a bit of a possible
Weekly reads: R01 grant trends, DPPA4, adult human neurogenesis debate Read More »
A piece on human tails and how we lost them caught my eye so I’ll start my weekly reads with that. This week I had the fewest Zoom meetings in ages, which allowed me to get more work done in my own lab and more reading. How about that? I even had some in-person meetings
Recommended reads: a tale of human tails, heart reprogramming, pericytes, microglia Read More »
I’ve been following the research related to human cloning now for more than a decade. Is human cloning more possible at this point? How do we even define such cloning? Did you know there are two types? The goal of this post is to educate you and in the process answer such questions. What’s in
Human cloning is more likely now but would you take the big risks? Read More »
This was an unusual week in that three papers in a sense collided together related to embryo production and growth, raising new research possibilities but also serious ethical questions. New research: what is an embryo & what is not? The first two Nature papers reported generating the most realistic models of human embryos from scratch
Weekly reads: embryo pubs stir things up, organoids crying, & more Read More »
What are embryonic stem cells and how do we scientists obtain them? My lab here at UC Davis School of Medicine has been doing research on embryonic stem cells for more than 14 years. You’ve come to the right place for expert answers on these very intriguing cells. What’s in this article Where do embryonic
What are embryonic stem cells & where do they come from? Read More »
Today’s The Niche recommended weekly reads post includes both primary papers and also a few media pieces. I’m especially interested in the first piece on making more complex embryo-like structures from ES cells. This is a long way from just making embryoid bodies or EBs. At the end of the post I discuss an article
Weekly The Niche reads: lab-grown embryos & thymus, more Read More »
Something called, “The International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing” has issued a new report on heritable human genome editing (HHGE). The Commission was convened by the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.K.’s Royal Society. This post is my initial take on the summary of
New human genome editing (HHGE) academy report: solid, but key gaps Read More »
We kind of take for granted these days that embryonic stem cell research can proceed without any restrictions, at least at the federal level. However, in the early days of blogging here on The Niche the big debate and battle were over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Things got very complicated and for
Lessons from when embryonic stem cell research was illegal Read More »