What is stem cell snake oil? Stem cells are exotic things ensconced away in biomedical research labs, right? Well, maybe not entirely so these days. It turns out that you can try to sell products for a lot of money by slapping “stem cells” on the label including cosmetics. Take Nordstrom’s. It has 80 stem […]
Stem cell snake oil for sale at Nordstrom, Amazon, & Ebay? Read More »
The Japan Times has the first detailed account in English about Haruko Obokata’s new book, “That Day”. HT to blog reader Shinsakan. (update: another helpful piece on this from the WSJ). In the book, Obokata (who was widely blamed for the STAP cell fiasco) seeks to shift the blame to others according to the paper.
Obokata claims she was framed for STAP cell scandal Read More »
For the first time to my knowledge, a patient has sued an American stem cell clinic, US Stem Cell, alleging damage to her eyes from fat stem cell injections. Just a few months ago, there was a report of a Japanese patient who sued a fat stem cell clinic and won, but I’m not aware
US stem cell clinic sued for injection into eyes Read More »
Last week I blogged about how the FDA had issued a warning letter to a series of three co-owned fat stem cell clinics across the US. What does this FDA action mean on the broader stem cell clinic arena, particularly to those selling fat stem cells? The FDA is still in the process of getting public comment
FDA warning points to tougher regulation of fat stem cells & clinics Read More »
The stem cell arena is a complicated universe with a whole range of things going on at any one time and there’s usually ample negative things, but not all is bad news. It’s interesting to regularly look specifically at the good stem cell news out there. Below is a look at some top pieces of
Stem cell good news to start 2016 Read More »
Editor’s note: this is a guest post on the US stem cell environment. By Heather Main I moved to the San Diego from Australia in August 2015, and Paul asked me if I could write something on my first impressions of doing science in the US, as opposed to other countries I have worked/studied in
First impressions of the US stem cell environment from an Aussie Read More »
Just how often do press releases (PR) get science wrong? A new paper came out from the lab of Matthias Lutolf in Nature Materials that seems interesting. Using a special matrix, reprogramming of cells reportedly worked better. Good stuff. However, a (PR) from the home institution of EPFL and media pick up on the story used
Squeeze PR on stem cell paper evokes STAP cell bad vibrations, gets corrected Read More »
The FDA has sent a Warning Letter to the Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center. The leader of Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center is Dr. Thomas Gionis and the letter was addressed to him. Interestingly, this letter, dated December 30, 2015, contains redactions. At one time this clinic was part of the larger Cell Surgical Network (CSN)
FDA Warning Letter to Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center Clinics Across US Read More »
I try to catch up on my science reading over the weekends and evenings. Here’s my recommended weekend reading on stem cells & science. Did I miss anything especially cool? Let me know in the comments. Direct reprogramming of skin cells into insulin-producing cells. I love direct reprogramming. Healios and Athersys Enter Into Regenerative Medicine Partnership.
Recommended weekend reading on stem cells & science Read More »
Forget retracting a paper, could Paolo Macchiarini try to get a retraction of Vanity Fair piece on his wild personal life an CV? Macchiarini is one of the more well-known stem cell and regenerative medicine researchers, and not always related to good news. You can see read posts I’ve done on him on this blog including
Vanity Fair Dissects Stem Cell Surgeon Macchiarini in Exposé Read More »