By Samantha Yammine, PhD Candidate in Derek van der Kooy’s lab at the University of Toronto. See tweets live from #TMM2016 via @SamanthaZY here. Last week, 430 Canadian scientists, trainees, industry professionals, science communicators and international guests gathered in the picturesque ski town of Whistler, British Columbia for the annual Till & McCulloch meeting (TMM). […]
If you rewind the stem cell clock several years, the big news in the stem cell clinic arena was dominated for quite some time by a single stem cell clinic called Celltex in Texas in part because their most famous customer was Governor (at that time) Rick Perry. You can read the many past posts I’ve
Rick Perry’s Paid Board Position at Controversial Stem Cell Clinic Celltex Read More »
Happy Stem Cell Day! It is a tumultuous time for the stem cell and regenerative medicine fields, but despite this there are concrete reasons for optimism on this Stem Cell Awareness Day. I’ve listed my top 10 below. What else gives you a sense of optimism? You can also check out CIRM’s nifty stem cell
Reasons for optimism on Stem Cell Day 2016 Read More »
South Africa is facing a stem cell scandal related to what a health policy news outlet called Spotlight there characterizes as illegal experiments by ReGenesis Biotechnologies, the company at the heart of the controversy. It had a contract with a governmental health provider agency, now apparently suspended. The report begins this way: “The Medicines Control Council
South Africa grapples with “illegal” stem cell experiment scandal Read More »
The upcoming big FDA 2-day public stem cell meeting next week is generating a lot of interest within the stem cell community and also with members of the media. I expect there to be tons of coverage, which should be a good thing (note that there’s a different FDA stem cell meeting tomorrow). If you can’t make
For big FDA stem cell meeting, are clinics paying some participants? Read More »
This edition of our stem cell news bites finds a number of notable stem cell news items. A potentially cool link between gut stem cells and microbiota is reported by Tae-Hee Kim of the Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine. See the nifty image of the stem cells from Dr. Kim showing proliferating gut cells in
Stem cell news bites: microbiota, clinic doc death, Stem Cells Inc, & more Read More »
When potentially game changing new technologies are reported such as NgAgo gene editing, both scientists and the public get excited, but especially if such new reports stem from a single paper it is wise to take a cautious approach for a while. The key question is whether the new findings will turn out to be
Nature Biotechnology looking at NgAgo paper amidst reproducibility concerns Read More »
Each December I make stem cell predictions for the coming year and I did that for 2016 where I made 20 predictions. At around mid year I do a checkup on how my predictions are doing halfway and that is the purpose of this post. Below are my predictions that I made in 2015 for stem
Stem cell checkup: how are my 2016 predictions doing half way? Read More »
The journal Nature published an excellent editorial earlier this week on stem cell oversight and stem cell clinics. The piece, entitled ” FDA should stand firm on stem-cell treatments. US regulators must regain the upper hand in the approval system” struck just the right balance. It correctly supported the FDA’s data-centered approach to stem cell oversight and
Perspectives: Nature editorial on stem cell oversight & clinics gets it right Read More »
It’s an exciting time to be a stem cell scientist and I feel fortunate to be doing research on stem cells today what with all the developments recently and real promise for clinical impact in coming decades. There’s also unfortunately a ton of hype out there including in academia, biotech, and the stem cell clinic
Stem cells on the 4th of July: plenty of fireworks lately Read More »