There have been many other interesting scientific and specifically regenerative medicine developments and papers this past week including with CIRM and exciting CIRM funding to UC Davis so read on, but first a somewhat random question: are you more of a cat person or dog person? I’d say I’m both. But our big dog is […]
Weekly reads: cats, COVID, Muse cells, cancer stem cells, MS Read More »
Can a heart repair itself via their own stem cells and do hearts have meaningful populations of stem cells? Science evolves Sometimes what we scientists all know to be true turns out later on to be wrong and there are clear instances of this in the stem cell field. For example for decades the dogma was
Can a Heart Repair Itself Via Stem Cells Read More »
IPS cell research is a growing area of promise for regenerative medicine. These stem cells, also known as iPSCs or more formally as Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, are engineered cells that are programmed to function the same way as embryonic stem cells. They can be differentiated into possibly any type of cell that is needed for
Overview of IPS cell prospects for clinical impact Read More »
Maybe we can use science as an escape from politics during the last week or so before the election? I hope so. Here are my weekly recommended reads. Several papers ended up relating to nucleus, cell and embryo size and space as well as chromatin, which is very interesting. Cell and chromatin biology pubs, media
Weekly science reads: CRISPR, stem cells, cell size & space, more Read More »
What a difference one day can make including in the types of questions I’m getting with this one rising to the top: should President Donald Trump get stem cells for his COVID-19? Whether he should or not, will he get them? This is more than a hypothetical as a surprising number of people in Trump’s
Will Trump get stem cells for COVID-19? Read More »
Drugs that restore the shape of the errant protein behind cystic fibrosis (CF) have, over the past eight years, helped the majority of patients, who have certain mutations. Gene-corrected stem cells might offer a “mutation agnostic” option to CF. CF results from a glitch in a glycoprotein with the unwieldy name “cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance
Can Gene-Edited Stem Cells Treat Cystic Fibrosis? Read More »
As a pivotal advance in the gene-editing field and timeline, CRISPR continues to be utilized for research on stem cells and human diseases. Today, I will explain some of the most notable recent findings in the stem cell-CRISPR field. To start things off, I have also created an infographic that briefly explains what CRISPR-Cas9 is,
New research on CRISPR gene-editing in stem cells, infographic Read More »
Reading to them was one of my favorite things to do with my kids when they were little, but it’s a long way from Goodnight Moon to this week’s list of recommended reads, although “bee brain” may have got their attention. Please take a minute to complete our The Niche reader survey for a chance
Recommended reads: Bee brain, COVID, from Russia with stem cells, pubs Read More »
Introduction to CAR-T cells CAR-T cells are an exciting cutting-edge technology that has been garnering great interest including in the stem cell field. Potential therapeutic uses of CAR-T, which stands for Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cells (CAR-T), are being studied in clinical trials as immunotherapies to potentially fight cancer as well as many other diseases by
CAR-T cells review: cancer & a critical look at possible uses in aging & COVID-19 Read More »
Many are jumping on the bandwagon of trying stem cells for COVID-19 or testing other cellular therapies for the novel coronavirus disease, but there have been problems with either the rationales for the trials themselves or more often with how they portrayed. Sometimes there has even been outright hype. I’ve called this collective trend of
Overselling stem cells for COVID-19: WSJ article & UMN PR Read More »