There’s a new paper in Cell Stem Cell on esophageal organoids that has really caught people’s attention. It is entitled, “3D Modeling of Esophageal Development using Human PSC-Derived Basal Progenitors Reveals a Critical Role for Notch Signaling.” It comes from a team led by Jianwen Que. Update: I didn’t realize when I first did this post that […]
Digesting new esophageal organoids papers Read More »
Clinicaltrials.gov is a wonderful resource for its many users, whether a patient searching for a clinical trial to actually participate in or someone doing research as I have done, but it’s not perfect and some sponsors have been breaking the rules regarding its use. It’s a major problem in fact. Based on new draft guidance
FDA outlines potential crackdown on Clinicaltrials.gov offenders Read More »
What happens when one of the most exciting stem cell biotechs ViaCyte teams up with a firm like CRISPR Therapeutics to use a combination of gene editing and cell therapy? Hopefully a synergistic partnership emerges that in this case can develop an effective stem cell-based therapy for diabetes. You can see a press release on
ViaCyte & CRISPR Therapeutics team up to battle diabetes Read More »
What the devil is a vampire facial? I first heard about the vampire facial, sometimes also called a “vampire facelift” when professional celebrity Kim Kardashian reportedly got one. I weighed in on that five years ago here. There was some question in how this procedure was portrayed as to whether it involved stem cells, which
Vampire facial update: Kardashian has regrets, others maybe infections Read More »
Time to sell exosome therapies to patients? No. Some stem cell clinics and related firms are looking for new ways to make profits and toward that goal a few have latched onto the legitimate buzz around exosome research. What are exosomes? Imagine if you could bubble up a pea-sized sphere off your skin full of
As exosome work advances, clinics pitch unproven therapies to patients Read More »
Our California stem cell agency, CIRM, started as a baby even before I came to California in 2006 to start my lab here at UC Davis School of Medicine, but now CIRM or to use its full name the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is I’d say a full-grown, mature adult at about age 13
Poll on refunding CIRM on eve of informational legislative hearing Read More »
When you get an FDA warning letter (like if you are a non-compliant stem cell clinic) you generally aren’t feeling too well after reading it, but now there’s an extra thing to worry about according to the FDA. A fake FDA warning letter. Apparently 3-dozen or more of these fake FDA warning letters sparked complains
Fake FDA warning letter scam Read More »
It’s an odd confluence of events this week that (A) the Nuffield Council, an ethics think tank, gives a thumbs up in a new report to heritable human genetic modification that would probably include using CRISPR in the same week that (B) a new paper reports that CRISPR can cause unpredictable genomic damage and several other concerning reports
Mixed Nuffield Council Report Too Aspirational on Human Genetic Modification Read More »
If it seems to you like dramatic cautionary tales about CRISPR accompanied by all sorts of media are coming at us more frequently, it’s not your imagination. In the latest yesterday, it was reported in a new paper led by Allan Bradley that CRISPR-Cas9 results in sometimes large-scale chromosomal lesions at or even away from the
Mulling over latest CRISPR tumult, this one from Nat Biot pub on DNA lesions Read More »
One of the reasons I’m a scientist is that I find biology fascinating and admittedly novel biomedical science can really catch my eye, but more recently as a somewhat grizzled researcher, I’ve become increasingly skeptical about some “sexy” research and media coverage of it. A small red flag went up for me as I was
Perspectives on uncritical NYT coverage of cardiac mitochondrial transplant trial Read More »