Search Results for: good news

Blunt comment from stem cell industry insider in defense of RTT & Texas Law

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My recent post on the push for National Right-To-Try (RTT) including a detailed comment from ISSCR stirred some animated feedback. In the spirit of encouraging diverse discussion, here I am posting a striking comment I received from a stem cell industry insider regarding that post on RTT as it relates to stem cells and s/he was especially […]

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A hairy question: stem cells to cure baldness 2017?

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Stem cell for hair loss

Stem cells to cure baldness? I get asked all kinds of questions as a blogging professor including about the use of stem cells for cloning of humans, sexual enhancement of some kind (see posts here and here) and even that question above about stem cells to cure baldness. Many want to know if a real baldness treatment is coming based on

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CRISPR, human genetic modification, & a needed course correction

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Are designer babies made using CRISPR or other genetic modification technologies closer to reality today? If so, what exactly should we do about it? Researchers can use CRISPR to genetically modify just about any organism or its cells, but targeting humans is the subject of the most intense discussion including using CRISPR in the human germline

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How risky are stem cell trials for Parkinson’s beginning in China?

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Brain-PET-scan, stem cells

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

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Burt Northwestern Stem Cell MS Trial Part 3: Funding, Patient Perspectives, & the Future

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Today’s post is the last of a three-part series on the Burt stem cell trials at Northwestern. This piece is focused on funding and the future of the trial, and also includes perspectives from patients. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here, which focused on issues related to potential encouragement of patient fundraising that unintentionally releases

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A TGIF weekend reading list of new stem cell pubs & headlines

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In case you have some free time for reading this week, here’s a list containing an assortment of interesting research articles and stem cell headlines. I’ve thrown some oddballs in there too including one article from May 1983, when I was just finishing up junior high. No, I didn’t write it. And no the headline

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Burt Northwestern Stem Cell MS Trial Part 1: Big Promise & Tough Questions

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Curing-Multiple-Sclerosis-Stem-Cells

Dr. Richard Burt of Northwestern University has been doing cutting edge research on the use of stem cells for autoimmune disorders for more than a decade. The core idea behind the work that Burt and other research teams are doing is that stem cells may have revolutionary potential to somehow counteract the autoimmunity that causes

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Dr. Jeffrey Weiss, SCOTS trial, & Patient Claims of Blindness

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Two physicians are central to something called the SCOTS trial, Dr. Jeffrey Weiss and Steven Levy. Patients have claimed negative outcomes after participating in the trial. What’s going on here? SCOTS trial The recent NEJM paper reporting on the blinding of three patients in Florida may be just the beginning. More information has come out on negative

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Does stem cell clinic IRB approval mean much? Insights from blinding cases

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stem-cells-eyes, stem cell therapy side effects.

Could the blinding of three women at a stem cell clinic have been prevented by better oversight or was the clinic acting outside of the scope of oversight by its institutional review board (IRB)? More broadly, when is an IRB conducting proper oversight and how do we know? When on the other hand is it

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