The novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, have swept the world with few proven treatment options. Vaccines are only recently being rolled out the last 2 or so months, which gives some real hope. While the novel coronavirus-caused illness is generally a mild disease in kids (many of whom don’t even show symptoms), […]
The Niche COVID-19 updates & resources Read More »
Here in the U.S. we just had our big Thanksgiving holiday, but science goes, stem cells keep growing and needing attention, and it’s another weekend chance to catch up on our paper reading. Here’s this weekend edition of recommended reads including news items and pubs. From Cell Stem Cell: Single-Cell Transcriptome Analysis of Uniparental Embryos Reveals
Once upon a time this blog and major outlets around the world were regularly writing about a Japanese stem cell researcher named Haruko Obokata (小保方 晴子). Whatever happened to Obokata and the other folks directly involved in STAP cell research? First, a bit of background because maybe still a few people never heard of STAP cells
Whatever happened to the STAP cell scientists including Haruko Obokata? Read More »
Today’s post is a review of Unnatural Selection, the new Netflix science docuseries focused on CRISPR and other disruptive genetic and reproductive technologies. The show is an interesting mix of personalities and stories from patients, scientists, biohackers, and more. One patient thread is the story of a wonderful little boy named Jackson Kennedy. He wants
Unnatural Selection review: captivating mind-bender but needed more science Read More »
“HSCT Chicago Clinic Closing!” is the startling header in all caps on a patient-run Facebook page about a stem cell therapy clinical trial program at Northwestern University. What’s going on? Unfortunately, the promising field of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for multiple sclerosis (MS) and other autoimmune diseases seems to have suffered an unexpected setback
Northwestern abruptly ending Burt HSCT autoimmune trials Read More »
A couple weeks ago I launched our 2019 stem cell pic contest here on The Niche. It was a challenge for me choosing the winner from the top 9 finalists, whose images I made a composite of that is included toward the end of this post. The picture at the bottom of the composite seems
The Niche 2019 stem cell pic contest winner is Shiri Gur-Cohen Read More »
A fitness guru named Ben Greenfield has now reported self-injecting non-FDA approved stem cells from US Stem Cell. He says the stem cells came from a clinic that lost a big federal court case 9 days ago. Greenfield posted a Facebook video of the actual injection, which he narrates. There’s some text along with the
Ben Greenfield DIY injection of risky stem cells Read More »
When we mix celebrities like William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on the original Star Trek series with stem cells, things usually end badly. For this reason when I read that Shatner had gotten a supposed stem cell treatment, I saw it as bad news. Like the arrival of a Borg ship. Just one problem
About that Captain Kirk ‘stem cell treatment’ Read More »
This post is a recap of some major points of Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 and The Battle of Winterfell. Before you go on, there are tons of SPOILERS ahead so stop and leave now if you don’t want to see them. Really, many SPOILERs so go away if you don’t want to
Recap & Thoughts on Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 (lots of spoilers so beware!) Read More »
Historically, the main route of proposed healing via stem cell therapy was cell replacement. In this way of thinking the transplanted cells engrafted (took up home) in the patient’s tissue and replaced dead or diseased cells. However, interest continues to grow in other possible modes of healing by stem cells that don’t rely on cell
4 possible roles for stem cell therapy besides cell replacement Read More »