The exciting and sometimes downright crazy giant stem cell ecosystem of legit research and unproven stem cell clinics could use a dose of good news now and then. In today post, I highlight some upbeat news and some interesting recent pubs. Enjoy! From a team led by Hina Chaudhry, MD, Director of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine at …
What happens next to He Jiankui (贺建奎) or as some people now refer to him, the “CRISPR baby guy”? China has a challenging situation to resolve here, but such conflicts between scientists and governments have happened regularly in history. When scientists go “rogue” (i.e. don’t conform to norms or ethical standards in an extreme way or …
Could He Jiankui have faked part or all of his CRISPR babies story? If so, how? Why? Or to put it another way, almost everyone seems to be assuming the story is real, but should we be more skeptical? Should we flip things around and assume the story isn’t entirely kosher until proven otherwise? I once …
History tells us to be more skeptical of He Jiankui’s CRISPR baby story Read More »
What do you read on the weekend? I wish for me it was at least in part some contemporary novel or science fiction, but that’s rare. More often than not it is almost all science. I do read the Sunday NY Times at least. I usually accumulate things during the week that I want to …
TGIF Weekend Science Reads: stem cells, PRP, CIRM, CRISPR, & more Read More »
I’ve got some TGIF recommend reads on stem cells, etc, but first, what a week, right? We need more action on preventing gun violence. It’s a uniquely American health crisis that doesn’t have to be. There’s no real, common sense reason that gun control can’t reduce mass killings of our kids and others like the …
TGIF: Guns, stem cells, science weekends reads & good news Read More »
We have a big problem with clinics in the U.S. selling unproven and non-FDA approved stem cell “treatments” to patients and part of the reason in my view why we have this mess today with upwards of 700 such businesses from coast to coast is that regulators including both the FDA and state medical boards …
Pending State Medical Boards Group Report on Stem Cell Clinics Could be Game Changer Read More »
The new CRISPR human embryo paper from Shoukhrat Mitalipov is stirring things up, but then there’s also the murky back story as to how the news of this as yet unpublished paper got leaked in the first place. The actual paper is still not out and from what I understand hasn’t even been officially released …
Some months back a USPTO court issued a ruling that most interpreted as meaning the Broad Institute had won the so-called ‘CRISPR patent battle’ in the U.S. and that UC Berkeley, Jennifer Doudna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier had lost. Now this week Berkeley has appealed that ruling. It seems the odds are against Berkeley prevailing in its appeal, but frankly …
The Trump FDA commissioner nominee Dr. Scott Gottlieb could dramatically alter how the agency regulates investigational stem cell therapies. How might such changes unfold? There are potential upsides and downsides to the seismic shift that could be in the offing. Gottlieb has written in the past about his perception of FDA over-regulation of stem cells such …
How Scott Gottlieb may transform the FDA’s approach to stem cells Read More »
A new paper focused on human and other chimeras just came out today in Cell reporting a number of findings, but most strikingly successful generation of human-pig chimeras in utero. The paper, entitled, “Interspecies Chimerism with Mammalian Pluripotent Stem Cells” describes various chimeras including mouse-rat ones, although those have previously been reported. This work comes …