Many of you readers know tech guru Peter Diamandis for his great X PRIZE, but he’s also involved in the regenerative medicine world including a new effort called Fountain Life. Teaming up with life coach Tony Robbins and others for Fountain Life raises some red flags for me. What’s in this article Peter Diamandis and …
Review of Peter Diamandis Fountain Life clinics: more than stem cell hype? Read More »
I am in the unique position of being a stem cell scientist who has no commercial interest in selling therapies so I can be impartial on giving patients and consumers guidance. In today’s post I give an overview of stem cell therapy and provide an expert, unbiased guide to navigating this area. This post is …
Updated patients guide to stem cell therapy for 2024 Read More »
The FDA has been busy with the COVID pandemic but it has many other things on its plate as well including cell therapies. Today I’m sharing some recent agency news and brief perspectives on it. FDA focus on clinic-related umbilical cord cell drug makers The agency warned an Idaho company that produces and sells umbilical …
FDA news: warning letter pattern, cancer moonshot, CAR-T & gene-editing guidance Read More »
For more than a year in my first job as a scientist I isolated cells from umbilical cord veins and then tossed the tissue away, never realizing there was more there that could be useful in the form of something called Wharton’s jelly. What’s in this article Umbilical cord histology & Wharton’s jelly | What …
What is Wharton’s jelly & its possible clinical uses? Read More »
A firm called Utah Cord Bank has been in the news related to stem cell clinics over the past year or two. Now they have received an FDA Warning Letter for a variety of manufacturing issues. Utah Cord Bank Background In terms of some brief backstory, Utah Cord Bank first popped up on my radar …
FDA warning to stem cell clinic supplier Utah Cord Bank Read More »
One of the most common questions I get from patients is about stem cell therapy for knees. Can it help knee arthritis and pain? Today’s post is a fact-check of where things stand today in 2024 on stem cells for knee issues. You can watch a video overview of this stem cell therapy for knees …
Stem cell therapy for knees 2024: fact-check, costs, risks Read More »
I remember seeing a cowboy-type TV show when I was a little kid where a guy pulled into town not slinging guns but selling snake oil. He stood right up on his wagon and started pitching the wonders of what he was selling. He had some buyers pretty quick. Eventually, someone like a sheriff or …
Snake oil history from century old elixirs to fake stem cells Read More »
One of the most common questions I’ve gotten over the last decade is, “how much does stem cell therapy cost?” They actually seem most often to want to know more specifically how much it should cost. To try to authoritatively answer this now in 2023 we need data from the present and past along with expert …
A grand jury indicted Missouri state representative and assistant physician Patricia Derges for allegedly selling and injecting patients with fake stem cells. The injection was reportedly just of amniotic fluid, but Derges allegedly claimed it was a stem cell treatment. NBC News was one of several media outlets that broke the story here after the …
Lawmaker indicted for selling fake stem cells for COVID & more Read More »
Each year I metaphorically try to look into a crystal ball for stem cell predictions for the coming year and I did so for 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw a monkey wrench into my predictions. It actually kind of blew some up. It also raised some interesting questions and dilemmas. For instance, do many …