It’s always fun to see startups with cool ideas in the regenerative medicine space and a new one called GC Therapeutics got some nice coverage this week. What do you think the name of this firm stands for? I have one main idea I mention below. Before we jump into it, I want to introduce […]
How is research looking on stem cells for diabetes? I’m feeling more encouraged about the clinical research in that area. Before we jump into that let’s talk about two other things. The big news of the week was the felony plea deal by Liveyon’s John Kosolcharoen to charges related to marketing an unapproved cell therapy
The private cord blood bank industry has promised families all kinds of great things over the years. A typical ad for such cord blood banks might say, “Your child may need cord blood in the future for a cure.” The industry also often uses the analogy of frozen cord blood as an insurance policy for
Vertex Pharmaceuticals has a lot going for it right now on the cell therapy front. For instance, they have the strongest type 1 diabetes cell therapy pipeline after some recent acquisitions. Still it’s not a simple matter to succeed in the cell therapy space even with one therapy for one targeted disease. Trials are tough
Weekly reads: Vertex, stem cells for MS, Athersys, 900-day paper review at Nature Read More »
The FDA has a unique mechanism called RMAT or regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation. It’s intended to move investigational regenerative therapies forward more effectively. RMAT data I recently updated The Niche RMAT list and it has jumped to 85. The FDA has approved many new RMATs this year. The data on how many applications the FDA
We all know people who seem far younger than their age, which feeds into the idea of biological age. It’s often in the news these days and all over social media. Some people who are fighting high-profile battles with aging are also doing something I call “health flexing.” I also called these folks by another
Biological age, health flexing, & stabs at rejuvenation Read More »
I’ve been writing The Niche now for more than 13 years and the idea of stem cells for ALS has been around that whole time. Unfortunately, it has been slow going on this front, but there are still reasons for hope. Probably now much more than ever before. I’ll start with news on one path
Weekly reads: stem cells for ALS, cell wrinkles, editors quit Read More »
Have you had the chance to play around on ChatGPT, the open AI? It can “talk” to you in text kind of like a person. I have tried it out. It’s quite interesting to type in scientific questions and see what pops out. Often it is high-quality text and solid ideas, but not always. You
Weekly reads: ChatGPT as author, COVID pub concern, CRISPR kit Read More »
I tend to perhaps over-focus on human CRISPR or gene editing, but other applications including in agriculture are definitely going to be huge. CRISPR in agriculture One that I’ve been following for a long time is the use of CRISPR to prevent cows from growing horns. Why is that a big deal? Just in the
Weekly reads: CRISPR chicks, HSCs, sequencing Mendel Read More »
Out of the blue this past week we lost Kevin McCormack of CIRM to a heart attack. When I first heard, my reaction was that can’t be, but it is. About Kevin McCormack If you aren’t familiar with him, Kevin was officially Director of Patient Advocacy at our state’s Stem Cell Agency. However, he was
Weekly reads: Kevin McCormack passes, HSCs & RXR, Ethics Read More »