Search Results for: embryonic stem cell

Mitalipov Nature pub review: IPSC & SCNT for mitochondrial disease

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In a new, thought-provoking paper today in Nature, Shoukhrat Mitalipov and a multi-institutional team report a significant advance toward potential novel ways to treat mitochondrial diseases. What are these illnesses? Mitochondrial diseases are rare, but devastating disorders caused by genetic mutations. Today they are largely impossible to treat in meaningful ways other than palliative care. Some […]

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Americans relatively more comfortable with human cloning

Gallup-cloning

What is morally acceptable and where do we draw the line at behaviors that might just go too far such as human reproductive cloning? Over the years American attitudes have shifted on a number of potentially hot button moral behaviors including reproductive human cloning and pollsters including Gallup have tracked these attitudes. Gallup just came out

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Genetic Modification of Humans Now Inevitable?

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Discussion of concerns over heritable human genetic modification has spiked in 2015. This dialogue is a good thing, but is it in a sense too late? Are genetically modified (GM) people a foregone conclusion? Rumors are swirling that upwards of four papers reporting production of GM human embryos are in various stages of review at high-profile

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Weekend Reads: Cool Papers, PubPeer, Jacob Hanna, & More

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Here are some papers and news for weekend reads. What are you reading this weekend? What are your go-to stem cell journals? Hostile Takeover: Glioma Stem Cells Recruit TAMs to Support Tumor Progression by Yu Shi, Yi-fang Ping, Xia Zhang, Xiu-wu Bian in Cell Stem Cell. YAP1 Regulates OCT4 Activity and SOX2 Expression to Facilitate self-renewal and

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ViaCyte CEO Laikind Interview: Trial Update, Melton, & Future

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It’s been exciting to watch the recent developments in using stem cells as the basis for treatments for Type I Diabetes. One of the major players in this arena is the privately-held company, ViaCyte. In this post, I interview ViaCyte President and CEO, Paul Laikind. The topics include their VC-01 product, the Encaptra device, an update on

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Supreme Court Rejection of WARF hESC Patent Challenge Discussion

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The challenge to the WARF/Jamie Thomson patents/IP on human embryonic stem cells (hESC) is at an end. The US Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Earlier, the USPTO had turned down the challenge leading to a winding road in the courts. What do you all think of this stem cell IP challenge and the

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Cloning Factory in China Has Familiar Partner: Hwang Woo-Suk

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Cloning of animals is becoming a big, global business, and Hwang Woo-Suk is a major player here. Hwang Woo-Suk and animal cloning It turns out that this reproductive cloning of animals goes well beyond making duplicates of pets for sentimental customers at $100,000 a copy. Cloning of livestock by agribusinesses is becoming fairly common. Some

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Loring, et al. Open Letter to CIRM: Continue Shared Labs

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An open letter to CIRM. By Jeanne Loring As the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) celebrates its successes on its 10th anniversary, there is coincidentally a less happy CIRM-related event. One of CIRM’s first investments in stem cell research was a network of dedicated stem cell laboratories throughout California. This program, called “shared labs”

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RIKEN fails to reproduce STAP, big CDB shake up expected

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Nikkei is reporting that the RIKEN internal attempt to replicate so-called STAP (acid bath) cells has failed. Update: apparently, although RIKEN calls the efforts preliminary, the team tried to make STAP an amazing 22 times and 22 times it failed. The rumors for weeks in the stem cell gapevine that RIKEN itself could not get

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