Would you want a GI specialist doing your heart surgery? How about a radiologist doing your brain surgery? I wouldn’t. So why then do so many patients accept that the doctor doing their stem cell transplant has no training in that area? I’m doing a series on eight simple reasons not to get an unlicensed […]
Recently I speculated on how a new pope (as yet unidentified at that time) might impact stem cells and the Catholic Church’s view of stem cells. I was skeptical. Now that we have the new Pope Francis, formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio, what will happen on the Catholic Church’s stem cell front? I could not find
Will new Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) cancel upcoming Vatican stem cell meeting? Read More »
What can a giant goldfish teach stem cell researchers about clinical use of the cells? It turns out, a great deal! A few weeks ago researchers from my home institution UC Davis and the US Forest Service made headlines with reported catches of giant goldfish in Lake Tahoe. These are not your grandad’s pond’s “big”
Giant goldfish teach researchers about stem cell treatments Read More »
The so-called “SafeCell” paper from the journal PLoS One is one that a number of advocates of deregulation of the stem cell industry often have mentioned to me: Safety of Cell Therapy with Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (SafeCell): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials I have read this paper and have some thoughts on it. As
An interesting paper just came out in PNAS reporting the apparent presence of a pluripotent stem cell population in the adult breast. The paper is Roy, et al. and is from Thea Tlsty’s outstanding lab at UCSF. I have read the paper and it seems very solid technically to me. The finding has stimulated some
Caution on mammary pluripotent stem cell paper Read More »
Is this a “good” stem cell blog post to write as I gobble down my lunch in between working on grants….hmm, maybe not. Too late! Stem cells are hot all around the globe, but they are particularly scorching hot in certain countries such as the Philippines. There are an increasing number of news articles on
Please pass on bull testicles Soup No. 5 & on stem cell Soup No. 7 Read More »
What are stem cell fraudsters? Two women in San Diego County are heading to jail after being convicted and sentenced for fraud related to stem cell treatments.The women injected concoctions of bovine stem cells from Germany and DMSO into patients. You can read the details of the original arrest here on the FBI website. According to
What does it take to be a stem cell biotech CEO?I’ve been running a poll on what is the ideal background for the CEO of a stem cell company. We got a pretty good turnout in this poll, although one is to be reminded that Internet polls are not scientific. It’s not perfect, but the
Poll results on stem cell biotech CEO are interesting Read More »
It is always exciting when a biomedical technology as revolutionary as iPS cells is on the cusp of being used in patients for the first time. In the last few days stories have reported about how a proposed clinical trial based on iPS cells has completed several regulatory steps and is closer to starting. This
The Catholic Church has long opposed embryonic stem cell research even as it has shown signs of getting more interested in adult stem cell research. I am an advocate of both types of research and both go on in my own lab. Now that we will have a new Pope this year, I wonder how
Could new Pope equal new Vatican policy on embryonic stem cell research Read More »