Search Results for: embryonic stem cell

Perspectives on Vatican Stem Cell Meeting: CIRM, Embryonic & Adult Stem Cells

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Vatican-stem-cell-meeting

What is a Vatican Stem Cell Meeting like? Over the years, the Vatican has expressed interest and even invested money in the adult stem cell field. Not surprisingly, they’ve also been critical of embryonic stem cell research. Interestingly their own stem cell meetings have at times stimulated heated debate for various reasons and one was even cancelled with […]

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Do human Very Small Embryonic-Like Stem Cells (VSEL) exist as a normal population of actual stem cells?

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Supposedly there is a type of normal adult stem cell that intrinsically possesses many of the same properties as embryonic stem cells (ESCs). No reprogramming needed. No blastocysts needed. These reportedly amazing cells, called Very Small Embryonic-Like Stem Cells (VSELs), can in theory be isolated from umbilical cord blood (UCB) or even bone marrow. Yet

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25 stem cell & regenerative medicine predictions for 2025

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regenerative medicine, stem cell predictions

Toward the end of each year I make predictions for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field for the coming year. I’ve been doing this for more than a dozen years in various forms. In this post I’m looking at the (gene-edited, stemness enriched) tea leaves for 2025 for the regenerative arena. These predictions include

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Weekly reads: stem cell therapy for vision loss, cancer self-experimentation, Slovenia, 14-day rule

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limbal stem cell deficiency LSCD, stem cell therapy for vision loss

Is there a proven stem cell therapy for vision loss? When I started The Niche back in early 2010, one major area of hope was that there might one day be a stem cell therapy for vision loss or even blindness. Maybe even a cure for blindness. While we’re not there yet as a field,

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Weekly reads: More good news on stem cells for diabetes, Panda stem cells, pricey longevity club

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stem cell therapy for diabetes

People often ask me what is the most promising new cell therapy and while it is difficult to choose just one, I often highlight the promise of stem cells for diabetes. Here in the U.S., early data from diabetes clinical trials by Vertex look encouraging. Other teams worldwide are also working in this space and

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Weekly reads: Vertex stem cells for diabetes, storing iPS cells on the Moon, science hype award nominees

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Felicia Pagliuca, stem cells for diabetes

How is research looking on stem cells for diabetes? I’m feeling more encouraged about the clinical research in that area. Before we jump into that let’s talk about two other things.  The big news of the week was the felony plea deal by Liveyon’s John Kosolcharoen to charges related to marketing an unapproved cell therapy

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Weekly reads: RMAT jump, tissues as liquid crystals, gov stem cell advisor scammed of $650K

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RMAT, FDA data

The FDA has a unique mechanism called RMAT or regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation. It’s intended to move investigational regenerative therapies forward more effectively. RMAT data I recently updated The Niche RMAT list and it has jumped to 85. The FDA has approved many new RMATs this year. The data on how many applications the FDA

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Weekly reads: late Macchiarini retractions, stem cells & Lululemon

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Paolo-Macchiarini

Paolo Macchiarini is one of a small group of people in the stem cell universe whose misconduct has blown up in the press. Piero Anversa, Haruko Obokata, Hwang Woo-Suk, and some operators in the unproven stem cell clinic sphere come to mind. Macchiarini published quite a few seriously problematic papers, some of which just hung

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Weekly reads: stem cells for epilepsy from Neurona Therapeutics, diabetes, contagious cancer

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Neurona Therapeutics, stem cells for epilepsy

People often ask me what are the most promising stem cell therapies in development and new data suggest we should add stem cells for epilepsy to the list based on work by Neurona Therapeutics. I’ll start off the weekly recommended reads with this new mouse paper on cell therapy for epilepsy. Neurona Therapeutics: stem cells

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Weekly reads: CRISPR sickle cell, Parkinson’s, pig-human chimera concerns

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CRISPR gene editing

CRISPR gene editing has made rapid progress heading from bench to bedside. Perhaps the fastest has been its progress toward clinical use to combat sickle cell disease. We’ll start with a new paper on one major effort here. CRISPR gene editing. This process often involves cutting DNA, which then can be used as an opening to

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