Can stem cells some day cure baldness? This is about more than vanity. Baldness can also be due to a medical condition or a side effect of a treatment of another kind. Many medical procedures such as radiation treatment for brain cancer or chemo as well as medical conditions such as burns or alopecia cause baldness, …
Skeptical look at stem cells for baldness: hope vs. hype Read More »
Yesterday was a crazy day for the STAP cell situation. We had RIKEN releasing a scathing internal investigatory report and then some folks in the media got all worked up about a single PCR assay result that Dr. Ken Lee posted on ResearchGate. Some of the reporters/science writers hyped their headlines/articles on this situation as though …
Dr. Lee STAP Result, Hyped by Media, in Proper Context Read More »
I’m discussing the seamier side of science in a seven part series on what I call scientific sinning, including science hype. The first three pieces in this series covered Failure to Cite, Paper or grant killing and a Need for Speed. Today we talk about how bad it can get when scientists hype their work and I’m going …
Is Vitamin D a miracle drug or a disappointment like almost all other vitamins? Just recently there was a piece saying that Vitamin D may reduce pain. Today there was another news article saying Vitamin D may protect men against more aggressive prostate cancer. You name the condition and Vitamin D is claimed to help with …
Vitamin D: is this supplement helpful or hype-ful? Read More »
Is trying to clone a woolly mammoth all just science hype? Hype is a bad thing and it hurts science in major ways. Hype channels resources away from valuable scientific pursuits and flushes them down the toilet. Hype makes people have unrealistic expectations so they end up disappointed by even very important science if it …
With the bewildering amount of news about stem cells, how do we tell the difference between hype and hope? Although the words “hype” and “hope” only differ by one letter, sometimes it is hard to tell them apart in real life, but of course they are very different things. So how do we know when …
I believe that stem cells may at some point allow people to live slightly longer, maybe a couple years on average. However, I think they have the potential to dramatically increase the quality of life during the time we are alive. My colleague Amy Adams over at the CIRM research blog had a great post …
Portraying sci-fi about stem cells and aging as reality: unhelpful hype Read More »
People often ask me about stem cells for autism or even their hope of an autism cure. I’ve explained that there is no new treatment for autism based on stem cells. There aren’t even mildly encouraging data. Note that it can be hurtful to the community to talk about an autism cure and disregarding neurodiversity. …
A new paper on stem cells for paralysis from a Mayo Clinic team has sparked a bit of legitimate hope but also some hype in the media. The publication was in Nature Communications. It is entitled “Intrathecal delivery of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells in traumatic spinal cord injury: Phase I trial.” The approach was direct injection …
Perspectives on new stem cells for paralysis paper & media coverage Read More »
Anti-aging might already be the big regenerative medicine story of 2024 and it’s only early March. Anti-aging hype going to the dogs? One of my 20 stem cell and regenerative medicine predictions for 2024 was that longevity would continue to make big news including in some not-so-great ways. In just over two months there has …