Dr. John Dick gave a great talk yesterday on cancer stem cells here at ISSCR 2016. Below I summarize his talk and as always with these meeting blogs, the post is not polished and is more of a stream of the speaker’s main points. He started out broadly with a nice introduction to this area of […]
Thought provoking talk from John Dick at ISSCR 2016 on cancer stem cells Read More »
2020 Update: early NgAgo reports have been mostly discredited and there is doubt on its function as a gene-editing method. What could be better than CRISPR for gene editing? A new genetic modification technology called NgAgo has some researchers really excited. How does it compare to CRISPR? I’ll admit it that as a scientist who works on
Will new gene editing tech NgAgo challenge CRISPR? Read More »
A committee of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) did one heck of a document dump yesterday on stem cell policy, releasing a whole bunch of policy recommendations on stem cells and more. The torrent from ISSCR included a 37-page policy statement itself as well as several papers in top journals including the
ISSCR Releases Flood of Stem Cell Policy Docs Read More »
What is direct reprogramming ? There’s some big, positive news on this stem cell front today. All chemical direct reprogramming Two new innovative papers both by teams led by Sheng Ding of Gladstone Institutes with UCSF report all-chemical direct reprogramming of human somatic cells. Ding’s team took skin cells and by exposing them to cocktails of
Big stem cell news: dynamic duo of all-chemical direct reprogramming reports Read More »
There’s a lot going on in the world of stem cells making for many striking headlines lately. Here are some stem cell headlines that caught my attention. Haploid Stem Cells Created. Could these cells be used to make germ cells? Charlatans and snake-oil salesmen ‘hijacking stem cell therapies’ in Australia In the CRISPR patent fight, the Broad Institute gains edge. The CRISPR-Cas9 patent
Stem cell headlines: half a genome, Australian snake oil, CRISPR patent battle Read More »
There’s a questionable notion floating around out there in the numerous discussions over heritable human genetic modification and CRISPR. This idea goes that if germline human gene editing goes awry for any number of reasons, scientists could simply reverse it by applying genetics again. The reversal notion does not fit with the reality of science
You can’t retract a designer baby: CRISPR, social justice, & risks Read More »
It’s exciting that the reviews are starting to come in on my new book, GMO Sapiens, on human genetic modification including CRISPR. Here is one from The Scientist and the book was recommended by Scientific American. Reviews from individual authors and scientists are below. “GMO Sapiens could not be more timely. New technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 gene
Reviews of my new book GMO Sapiens on #CRISPR & human modification Read More »
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences (NAS), Engineering, and Medicine here in the US recommends a policy significantly more cautious on first read for 3-person IVF than that in place now in the UK. My initial take on this new 164-page report is that it is very well thought out and the
NAS proposes prudent US policy on 3-person IVF Read More »
I’ll be on Talking Biopolitics live tomorrow to discuss my new book, GMO Sapiens. You can RSVP at that link. You can get the Kindle version of the book here or the soft or cover versions at the publisher site here. Nathaniel Comfort will be interviewing me on the book and we’ll also be taking
Join discussion of my new book GMO Sapiens on Talking Biopolitics tomorrow Read More »
The New York Times recently asked 6 people what sci-fi movie or novel is most prescient today; in my view it’s GATTACA. The responses ran the gamut: Fahrenheit 451, The Martian, The Fifth Season, The Body Snatchers, Book of the New Sun, and Use of Weapons. To me of those 6, the best case can
NYT asks which sci-fi work is most prescient today: I think GATTACA Read More »