What if there was a likable person test that we could take to see how other people really view us scientists? How would that work? It turns out that a sense of likability might be more influential in academia than some of us might think, but it’s often problematic too. This came to mind because …
How many academic scientists could pass a likable person test? Read More »
What can a gecko possibly teach us about skin cancer? Read on. It’s fun when a week’s worth of science reading covers so much territory including COVID-19, geckos that get cancer, a research misconduct sleuth, an FDA letter, and more. Baltimore weighs in on COVID lab origin idea Caltech has a very interesting interview with …
Recommended reads: Bik, FDA letter, gecko cancer model, David Baltimore on COVID origin Read More »
Something called the 14-day rule on growing human embryos in the lab helped keep a tough question in check for a long time: when is it ethically wrong or just practically unwise to continue growing a human embryo for research? There is no good answer based on science or anything else. ISSCR moves beyond strict …
Risks rise as ISSCR drops strict 14-day rule on human embryo growth in the lab Read More »
What do a Panama stem cell clinic and the Duke Autism Center have in common? More than I might have imagined. It’s a remarkable story that needs telling. Duke Autism Center There is a puzzle when it comes to the controversial idea of using cord blood for autism. Why? Because two of the strongest proponents …
Duke Autism Center has Panama clinic to thank for $10s millions? Read More »
The State of California is considering re-funding its stem cell agency, CIRM, to the tune of more than $5 billion dollars, but the issue has generated surprisingly little media attention. The main coverage has been by David Jensen over at California Stem Cell Report. Prop 14 polling data non-existent in public domain To my knowledge, …
Prop 14 polling on CIRM re-funding stays moderately upbeat Read More »
Three new studies reported in preprints all show severe DNA damage to human embryos from CRISPR a surprisingly high percentage of the time including in some cases loss of heterozygosity (LOH). Anywhere from about a quarter to half of CRISPR’d embryos exhibited major genome damage. As readers of The Niche know, I never was a …
A solid new, blinded placebo-controlled Phase II study from the Duke Autism Center clearly shows no benefit of cord blood for autism. Surprisingly, the team has said they are encouraged by the results. As a result, they apparently will continue this kind of work anyway despite their data. In contrast, I see the data as a …
Duke Autism Center trial: no benefit of cord blood for autism Read More »
By Samantha Yammine When our TV stops working, it’s usually because one of the wires has come unplugged. We begrudgingly huff and puff over to the back of the TV, track down the loose culprit, plug it back in, and boom: back to Netflix. If you multiply all those wires in the back of your …
By Elliot Hosman Summary. A campaign calling for a moratorium on using CRISPR in human embryos was launched by a prominent French organization fighting for narrow understandings of life and family. A recent campaign calling for a ban on “transgenic” human embryos was launched by one of France’s most prominent organizations fighting for “science”-backed “one-man-one-woman” …
Hateful politics infiltrate human genome editing debate in France Read More »
I just got back from a historic summit on human genetic modification in Washington, D.C. New genetic modification technology, termed CRISPR-Cas9, has both made genetic modification a relatively simple matter for scientists and human genetic modification much more likely in the near future. Heritable human genetic modification could prevent some rare genetic diseases so there …