This is just the first in a series “Tales from the hood” about the stories of the stem cell scientists at the front lines of research. What really goes on in labs? After spending nearly half of my life being a scientist in one form or another including much time studying stem cells, I have …
Tales from the Hood: what really goes on in research labs? Read More »
It has been a week to think about mentors and I posted somewhat autobiographically on how to find and be a good mentor a few days ago. Also along these lines, I asked one of the great mentors of all time, Irv Weissman, about his early career and who were the mentors that made the …
What’s the most amazing, weird, funny, bad, good thing that has happened to you in the lab? Here’s one from me. One day as a graduate student I was finishing up a long weekend of work and was ready to go home. No one else was around in our lab or even in the building …
A funny thing happened on the way to the incubator Read More »
Yesterday I ran a cancer stem cells meeting here at UC Davis School of Medicine. We had some great speakers and over 150 participants including our outstanding keynote speaker, Dr. Jeremy Rich, Director of Stem Cell Research at the Cleveland Clinic. One of the ideas percolating through the meeting was that during cancer development, there …
Cancer is a class of diseases that are intimately linked to stem cells. In fact, I would go so far as to call some types of cancer cells and stem cells, cousins. This concept, of a tight relationship between stem and cancer cells, is under intense investigation but at the same time it is something …
We live in a plastic world, full of BPA. Over the last 1/2 century, the proportion of our food and beverages that are consumed out of plastic containers has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, the concentrations of plastic-related chemicals in people around the world, even in remote corners, has gone up in parallel. I’ve written about avoiding plastic …
Regenerative medicine is very exciting. But what’s even better than regenerative medicine? Preventative medicine. If one can prevent a problem for occurring in the first place, it is far better than trying to treat it after the fact. Of course in many cases we do not know the causes of diseases so it is difficult …