Search Results for: stem cell therapy

Sexual Medicine Society on Unproven Regenerative Therapies for Erectile Dysfunction

February 1, 2021 / By / 3 Comments
Sexual-Medicine-Society-of-North-America

There are many potential causes of erectile dysfunction or ED and a host of ideas about how to treat it. Some approaches to erectile dysfunction are evidence-based and even have been rigorously proven such as the drugs Viagra and Cialis, which increase blood flow to the penis. Depending on the causes of the dysfunction, these …

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Mixed messages on CRISPR babies from National Academies versus their experts: a look at new Science piece

February 1, 2021 / By / 4 Comments
National-Academy-CRISPR-Baby-article

Three national academy leaders have a new opinion piece in Science on what the community needs to do next regarding human germline editing now that we are most likely in the CRISPR babies era. Some of us have been wondering what the Academies and their empowered experts really think about this issue and what they …

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Trying to connect the dots on CRISPR baby story paints a dark, cloudy picture

February 1, 2021 / By / Leave a Comment
connect-the-dots

When I was a little kid I played this game called “connect the dots” or “dot-to-dot”, where you draw a line from dot-to-dot in numerical order and at some point a picture starts to emerge. I think kids and even some adults still play this today. They even come in extreme versions with hundreds or …

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Hope on Parkinson’s front: Japan IPSC trial 1st patient

February 1, 2021 / By / 2 Comments
Fig-3i-Kikuchi-et-al.-Nature-2017-IPS-cell-Parkinsons-

In Parkinson’s Disease patients develop neurological dysfunction as they lose a special kind of brain cell called dopaminergic (or dopamine) neurons. While a number of different approaches to this disease have been studied for decades, nothing has proven particularly successful in slowing its progression. As a result there has been a big need for novel thinking …

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ViaCyte & CRISPR Therapeutics team up to battle diabetes

February 1, 2021 / By / 2 Comments
ViaCyte, cell therapy for diabetes

What happens when one of the most exciting stem cell biotechs ViaCyte teams up with a firm like CRISPR Therapeutics to use a combination of gene editing and cell therapy? Hopefully a synergistic partnership emerges that in this case can develop an effective stem cell-based therapy for diabetes. You can see a press release on …

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As exosome work advances, clinics pitch unproven therapies to patients

February 1, 2021 / By / 29 Comments
exosome-clinical-trials

Time to sell exosome therapies to patients? No. Some stem cell clinics and related firms are looking for new ways to make profits and toward that goal a few have latched onto the legitimate buzz around exosome research. What are exosomes? Imagine if you could bubble up a pea-sized sphere off your skin full of …

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Could Cancer Risk Claw CRISPR’s Potential? Some Balanced Perspectives

February 1, 2021 / By / 2 Comments
Cancer-CRISPR

Could potential associated cancer risks claw into CRISPR’s potential? The short answer from both previous and new data is that while CRISPR gene editing impacts the P53 pathway, which is involved in cancer along with having many other functions, this news is neither too surprising nor a fatal flaw, but some caution is warranted. CRISPR …

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Up your nose? OMG Facebook video moments from clinic sued by DOJ

February 1, 2021 / By
US-Stem-Cell-Facebook-video

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how about a Facebook video from a stem cell clinic? In my view it sure tells a story with some unusual twists. I wrote last week about this Facebook video by Kristin Comella, the leader of the publicly-traded stem cell clinic firm US Stem Cell, Inc. (USRM). As …

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Analysis: human immunity to Cas9 bigger #CRISPR therapeutic hurdle than off-targets?

February 1, 2021 / By / 1 Comment
Cas9-immunity-pre-print

Some in CRISPR-Cas9-land who are focused on potential future clinical applications are kind of rejoicing or at least sighing a breath of relief. This upbeat swing in the atmosphere (from investors especially) was sparked by retraction of that paper, the one initially reporting tons of supposed off-target CRISPR-Cas9 activity in mice, which turned out to be a “nothing …

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Civil Lawsuits as a Public Health Strategy: Can Cases Brought by Injured Plaintiffs have a Broader Effect?

February 1, 2021 / By / 2 Comments
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By Claire Horner In 2016, a law firm in California began looking for individuals who were “misled or harmed by stem cell treatment” in the southern California area (which was discussed on this blog here). While there had been other lawsuits filed by plaintiffs against individual clinics, this firm was looking to take a different …

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