In today’s post, I reviewed a stem cell clinic firm called Docere Clinics. In my opinion, there are some concerning issues here and reasons for caution. One type of procedure at Docere is particularly surprising and raises risks in my view. What is Docere Clinics? | What kind of stem cells does Docere use? | What they […]
Review of Docere Clinics run by Harry Adelson including total-body injections Read More »
Paolo Macchiarini is one of a small group of people in the stem cell universe whose misconduct has blown up in the press. Piero Anversa, Haruko Obokata, Hwang Woo-Suk, and some operators in the unproven stem cell clinic sphere come to mind. Macchiarini published quite a few seriously problematic papers, some of which just hung
Weekly reads: late Macchiarini retractions, stem cells & Lululemon Read More »
We all know people who seem far younger than their age, which feeds into the idea of biological age. It’s often in the news these days and all over social media. Some people who are fighting high-profile battles with aging are also doing something I call “health flexing.” I also called these folks by another
Biological age, health flexing, & stabs at rejuvenation Read More »
People often ask me what are the most promising stem cell therapies in development and new data suggest we should add stem cells for epilepsy to the list based on work by Neurona Therapeutics. I’ll start off the weekly recommended reads with this new mouse paper on cell therapy for epilepsy. Neurona Therapeutics: stem cells
The New York Times just broke a story on Burst Biologics and Weill Cornell that fits with long-standing troubling questions about regenerative biologics producers. The story also bears on the doctors and hospitals like Weill Cornell that were or are customers of the suppliers. Further, what is the FDA’s role in all of this? The
Burst Biologics unapproved biologic used by Weill Cornell: was there a cover-up? Read More »
A patient who got scientifically unproven and non-FDA-approved stem cells from Dr. Alvaro Skupin, filed suited against him, his wife who is often known as Doctora Nancy or Dra Nancy Alvarez, and associated businesses. These firms include the stem cell clinic known as Mother Stem Cell Institute in Florida, where the injections apparently took place.
Suit against Dr. Alvaro Skupin & Dra Nancy Alvarez over blinding at clinic is settled Read More »
Australian biotech Mesoblast has had a rollercoaster ride working toward FDA approval of its mesenchymal cell therapy product remestemcel-L. They are seeking approval for use in patients with graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). More specifically, it is intended for pediatric patients with steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease, or SR-aGVHD. This is a serious condition and new treatment
Hoping for approval, Mesoblast says FDA wants new remestemcel-L trial Read More »
It wasn’t that long ago that Chinese scientist He Jiankui got out of jail. Why was he in there? For doing unauthorized human CRISPR to make heritably gene-edited humans. He botched that and apparently forged some approvals to make it happen. The three children involved may have life-long health problems as a result. I wrote
He Jiankui proposes editing human embryos again Read More »
It’s mostly been a week of good and encouraging news in the regenerative medicine space including with gene therapies maybe with the exception of some eye drops warning (more below). There’s realistic hope for an approved sickle cell disease soon. I also see some long-term positive news on hearing loss research. Hematopoietic stem cell transplant
Weekly reads: reprogramming hearing loss, heart disease, eye drops, sickle cell Read More »
As we think about how much of a role belief should play in the hard sciences such as cell biology, a supposed cell type called VSEL or very-small embryonic stem cell-like cells comes to mind. For these guys it seems to me that the ratio of data to belief isn’t great. VSELs have nine lives. I
The role of belief in hard science: the VSEL case Read More »