When you want to both know the real history of the pluripotent stem cell-based biotech industry and perspectives on its future, there are only a handful of people to turn to and one of them is definitely Dr. Michael West, CEO of BioTime. I’m doing a several part series of blog posts on a lengthy […]
BioTime CEO Mike West Interview Part 2: Geron & hESC Read More »
In 2012 there was some grumbling about that year’s Annual ISSCR Meeting in Japan. If fact in last year’s polling only about 33% of people collectively felt positively about the meeting and by the far the top answer for rating the 2012 ISSCR Annual Meeting was “So so” at 43%. What about this year’s 2013
Polling: ISSCR 2013 meeting clearly better than last year’s Read More »
Is Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) on the road to cure Multiple Sclerosis (MS) using stem cells and specifically MSCs? Some folks seem to think it’s quite possible, but I remain skeptical. Still there have been some interesting developments. ACT has a relatively new patent filing for a mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) product that was just
ACT patent filing for MSCs: of Dancing Mice & Multiple Sclerosis Read More »
Remember Hisashi Moriguchi? He’s the fellow who claimed to have transplanted cells made from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into human patients, to have worked at Harvard, and so forth. It all turned out not to be true. He even admitted it. Now Moriguchi is back in the news. He has several more papers published
Hisashi Moriguchi 2.0: more papers, more claims, and a new mysterious co-author Read More »
Should a company be able to have a gene patent and more generally and practically speaking can genes be patented? Patent and IP issues always raise a myriad of questions so what about a patent case on a company called Myriad? Complicated, right? If genes in their natural form cannot be patented, does that mean
Myriad SCOTUS Decision: Can you have a gene patent? Read More »
Are you attending the ISSCR 2013 Annual Meeting this week in Boston? Want to get your voice heard about what you think of the meeting or specific talks or the most interesting thing you heard at the bar? You have an invitation to guest blog here on ipscell.com. Send me your ideas or draft posts,
Call for guest ISSCR 2013 bloggers: audience of thousands awaits you Read More »
Human cloning is not so far-fetched any more. Cloning of the Star Wars variety where new copies of people (although they would be babies, not adults of course at first) are produced is something I believe that we’ll see in the next 1-2 decades. Why would anyone bother to clone? Fame. Money. Vanity. There are
Concerns on the idea of human cloning for infertility Read More »
I worry that NASA is suffering from apophenia and pareidolia. Both acute and chronic cases. What the heck? Let me explain. Do you ever look up at the clouds and see fluffy animals? Or maybe other things that clouds look like such as a train, plane, or a dragon? Pareidolia is the tendency of people
NASA suffering from pareidolia & apophenia? The watery science of Mars Read More »
It’s not every day I get a letter from prison. This blog has sure put me in some interesting spots over the years such as meeting with Texas Guv Rick Perry. It happened again today. I got a letter from someone in prison (see above). I have obscured the prisoner’s name. I hope there’s no
TGIF Poll: Do I open the letter from prison? Read More »
People have been confused about human cloning issues in the last few weeks on a number of levels. The confusion has come along with the excitement, concern, and increased interest in cloning lately since the lab of Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov reported a few weeks back in Cell the astonishing feat of successful human embryonic stem
Why Shoukhrat Mitalipov opposes human cloning Read More »