When I first started The Niche more than a dozen years ago, I hoped we’d see a Parkinson’s disease stem cell therapy by now. A proven one. I was a little too optimistic back then. Now in 2022, I know much better how hard translation to the bedside can be in general. Still, I’m hopeful. …
Parkinson’s disease stem cell therapy research update Read More »
A much-anticipated induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cell trial for Parkinson’s Disease reportedly will soon launch led by Professor Jun Takahashi. The news broke on Yahoo Japan, which included an unusual number of appropriately sober statements regarding the trial, even though it is an exciting trial as well, compared to most media stories on stem cells. …
Launch of Jun Takahashi IPS Cell Trial For Parkinson’s Disease Read More »
One of the highlights of Day 1 of #ISSCR2018 for me so far was the talk by Lorenz Studer (Co-Founder of BlueRock) on the use of human embryonic stem cell (HESC)-derived dopamine neurons for Parkinson’s Disease. Note that for this post and if I have time any others on this meeting, they are probably going …
Lorenz Studer on Day 1 #ISSCR2018: HESC-based therapies for Parkinson’s Disease Read More »
One of the most famous living biological scientists, Sir Ian Wilmut, just announced that he has Parkinson’s Disease. I wish him the best in dealing with this illness. Wilmut is very well-known for having cloned the first mammal, Dolly the Sheep. This work followed on the earlier breakthrough by Sir John Gurdon of cloning the …
Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly, opens up about his Parkinson’s Disease Read More »
Is a treatment based on stem cells for Parkinson’s Disease on the horizon? A Japanese team of researchers led by Dr. Jun Takahashi, professor at Kyoto University is reportedly aiming to start on human studies of an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-based treatment for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) as early as fiscal year (FY) 2014. In …
Trial of Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease on Horizon Read More »
UPDATE: A second recent study, this one in Nature Genetics has found a novel genetic link between the immune system and Parkinson’s Disease. The authors were screening for genomic variants unique to Parkinson’s patients, finding known ones but also a novel linkage. The link was with the HLA region, known to play a key role …
Parkinson’s Disease, promising new results on iPS cells Read More »
CRISPR gene editing has made rapid progress heading from bench to bedside. Perhaps the fastest has been its progress toward clinical use to combat sickle cell disease. We’ll start with a new paper on one major effort here. CRISPR gene editing. This process often involves cutting DNA, which then can be used as an opening to …
Weekly reads: CRISPR sickle cell, Parkinson’s, pig-human chimera concerns Read More »
Several groups including Viviane Tabar who is a founding scientist at BlueRock Therapeutics are moving forward on potential cell therapies for Parkinson’s Disease. BlueRock just released some new data that’s worth a look. Check out the new BlueRock poster. In today’s post, I briefly discuss the new data. I also go into the larger context …
Small positive step for BlueRock Therapeutics Stem Cell Therapy for Parkinson’s Read More »
Early during my postdoc I was primarily interested in the role of Myc genes both in cancer and in stem cells, work that later included embryonic stem cells. These cells are often called ES cells. At first I first started studying N-Myc in neural stem cells using a conditional knockout approach. However, soon after I was …
Weekly reads: embryonic stem cells, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s Read More »
It’s been almost seventeen years that I’ve been a professor here at UC Davis Medical School. It feels like home. I enjoy teaching our first-year medical students each year. Some end up doing research in my lab. Our school recently got a nice write-up over at STAT News by Usha Lee McFarling on the diversity …
Weekly reads: UC Davis Medical School diversity, CRISPR, Parkinson’s Read More »