At the recent RPI stem cell and bioengineering meeting, the Neural Stem Cell Institute’s Sally Temple talked about her group’s intriguing retinal pigmented epithelial cell (RPE) research. With the broad focus of attention in the world of RPEs mostly on those derived from either human ESC or IPSC, it was exciting to here about the […]
Sally Temple on adult RPEs for vision impairment, IND, & more Read More »
My favorite grocery store here in Davis, California is Nugget Market. Our family shops at the various Nugget stores in the area fairly often. We like the food and the friendly service. I’ve been noticing not just at Nugget, but at some other stores too that the word “GMO” is popping up more. Both the actual
Nugget Markets: no GMO policy, but ‘Non-GMO’ labeling common Read More »
The idea that we could bioengineer new human body parts to replace old, faulty ones is exciting, and such parts could include limbs, digits, or even entire organs. Such replacements might be produced using stem cells, 3-D printers, and other rapidly evolving, cutting edge technologies. Sci-fi is becoming a reality. Remember in Star Wars when
Will bioengineered body parts cost an arm and a leg? Read More »
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
Americans relatively more comfortable with human cloning Read More »
At a genetic level, just how much do each of us human beings vary from each other in our total genome sequence? The number I was taught in Genetics at some point was that the genomes of any two human beings are likely to be 99.9% identical. So only about 1 out of 1,000 bp
How much human genetic variability is there really? Read More »
CIRM has reinvented itself in a new form, CIRM 2.0, under the leadership of its new President Randy Mills. CIRM is almost like a stem cell that has changed into another new kind of stem cell. Us scientists could see the change coming in the “programming” at CIRM in terms of how it was operating as
CIRM 2.0 starts off with a bang Read More »
The Obama Administration today weighed in on human germline genetic modification such as via CRISPR via a note from John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The White House indicated support for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy
White House supports moratorium on heritable human CRISPR Read More »
The local paper, The Sacramento Bee (SacBee) just ran a piece on Monday on the GMO controversy. Few places are more in the thick of it than right here in Davis, CA and the Sacramento region more generally. Some of the earliest GMO plants were created right here in Davis including the Flavr Savr tomato. Monsanto
Big article in SacBee on GMO battle Read More »
As CRISPR gene editing technology has advanced in the last few years, the number of genetically modified animals made with this system has steadily increased. Some are very interesting and useful for science. At the same time especially when they are little, they can be very cute. A nickname is going around for these GM
CRISPR critters: Cute pics of Cas9 gene edited animals Read More »
Heritable human genetic modification has been the topic of the year so far, but another trend is edgy and interesting: non-heritable, but cutting edge forms of human modification that in some ways fall into the class of biohacking. Biohackers are into do-it-yourself (DIY) forms of biology including self-modification. Sure, people have been modifying themselves for
DIY human ‘upgrades’ via biohacking Read More »