By Jeanne Loring There are ten million people in the world who have Parkinson’s disease. 125,000 of these are living in California. People with the disease often have to step away from their jobs because the main symptoms – tremor or freezing up of muscles – make it difficult to get through a whole day […]
On the threshold of cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease Read More »
Bulls-eye! Here are some stem cell weekend reads including both interesting new papers & news headlines. Of course, this week also had stem cell awareness day and I wrote about 10 key issues for the field for the coming 10 years! Weekend reads Papers Chromatin and Single-Cell RNA-Seq Profiling Reveal Dynamic Signaling and Metabolic Transitions during
TGIF stem cell weekend reads of papers & news Read More »
When patient families reach out to me, one of the most common questions is whether stem cells for autism offer real hope. The short answer at this time remains “no”. Of course, it’s not as simple as just “no” because there isn’t enough data to be sure, but there is reason for major skepticism about
Why I am still very skeptical about stem cells for autism Read More »
A list of stuff for your weekend reading enjoyment ranging from research pubs to news to commentary. Electrical Stimulation Steers Neural Stem Cells. Way to go UC Davis team; see image at right. Stem cell therapies: medical experts call for strict international rules. A team calls for global efforts. Stem cells in court: historical trends in US
TGIF: Stem cell and science weekend reads Read More »
In December of each year I make a list of stem cell predictions for the coming year, and I made 20 such predictions for 2017 so I’m wondering how I’m doing so far on these now that it’s June. Below is my work-in-progress scorecard for these so far. Positive news from Asterias on trial for stem cell-based
2017 stem cell predictions: score card at 1/2-way point Read More »
New human clinical trials using derivatives of pluripotent stem cells in China for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) have raised expectations and some eyebrows. PD is a neurodegenerative condition, sometimes diagnosed or followed by PET scans such as the one at left, characterized by loss of dopaminergic neurons leading to severe and sometimes life-threatening symptoms. Pluripotent stem
How risky are stem cell trials for Parkinson’s beginning in China? Read More »
Late in 2015, one of the pioneering stem cell and regenerative medicine biotechs, Ocata Therapeutics (fka as ACT or Advanced Cell Technology) was acquired by Astellas Pharma. At the time of purchase, Ocata had a number of areas of focus, but was most closely followed for its development of human embryonic stem cell-based retinal pigmented epithelial
Brief update from Bob Lanza on Astellas stem cell program Read More »
Should there be a religious or moral litmus test for the NIH Director? A few dozen super conservative Republican members of Congress have written a letter to President Trump saying he should fire NIH Director Francis Collins. Why? Because they claim that Collins is not conservative enough for their taste and in particular they don’t
GOP reps to Trump: fire NIH Director Collins for stem cell research support Read More »
Enjoy! A Sunday brunch for the brain of science news, helpful links, and notable new papers including on stem cells. News and links CBER Director Focuses on Flexibility to Advance Regenerative Medicines Lab-Grown Blood Stem Cells Produced at Last Transplanted stem cells become eggs in sterile mice Maryland fund awards $8.5 million for stem cell research Positively good news from Asterias
Stem cells Sunday brunch of good news, fun links, & cool papers Read More »
By Jeanne Loring “Mutation” and “cancer” are eye-catching words for a headline; add “stem cells” and there is a good chance that a lot of people will hear about it. These words have been liberally used in the press to describe the results of a recent publication: “Human pluripotent stem cells recurrently acquire and expand
Mutations in pluripotent stem cells: No, the sky is not falling Read More »