One of my favorite stem cell scientists is Jeanne Loring of Scripps. She does great science and when you ask her questions, she frankly states her opinions and is clearly a gifted educator at heart too. Below is a Q&A interview I did with Jeanne on key issues of clinical translation of iPS cells. You […]
Jeanne Loring interview: optimism on clinical translation of IPS cells Read More »
One of the more exciting stem cell biotechs out there today is Advanced Cell Technology (ACT). At this time ACT has the only two ES cell-based FDA-approved clinical trials ongoing and so far they have looked quite promising in terms of preliminary safety data. However, ACT has much more in the pipeline including potentially iPS
Interview with Gary Rabin of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) Read More »
When are iPS cell-based therapies ready to be tested in actual people? It’s the million or perhaps even billion dollar question of today in the stem cell field. I realize that perhaps it is also a dangerous question, politically-speaking, for me to ask in a public forum, but patient lives as well as potentially the
The FDA is faced with years of a static budget and a rapidly growing stem cell and cell therapy for-profit sector. It also faces criticisms (some that it has acknowledged are legit) from certain folks in the stem cell field. If you could change just one thing about the FDA in terms of its oversight
What Would be Your #1 Top FDA Reform on Stem Cells? Take our poll Read More »
The so-called “SafeCell” paper from the journal PLoS One is one that a number of advocates of deregulation of the stem cell industry often have mentioned to me: Safety of Cell Therapy with Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (SafeCell): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials I have read this paper and have some thoughts on it. As
How do dubious stem cell clinics get patients in the door to make money? In part they do this via the Internet via the clinics’ own websites. There are also patient websites, some secret, which may serve ad recruitment tools for specific clinics. A more general tactic may be the use of so-called “recruiter-patients”. There
Recruiter-patients: how common & corrupt is this practice at US stem cell clinics? Read More »
One of the most important elements of science is critical reading of papers. Most of us come into science as undergrads feeling somewhat naive about what we read in papers. Our default tendency is to believe most or all that we read as “true”. As we get more experienced, we realize that in fact if
Critically reading science papers: response to patient on MS stem cell literature Read More »
I requested of Celltex a copy of the email/letter that they recently sent to their patients. They kindly provided me a copy, which you can read here (snap shot of beginning is above). Thank you, Celltex! I also asked Celltex some questions regarding their plan to start having patients treated in Mexico. Unfortunately, they have
Celltex on the move: full copy of letter to patients, new slogan, and new video Read More »
I recently did a Q&A interview with NeoStem CEO Dr. Robin Smith. I posted Part 1 of that interview a few days ago here. Now we have part two focused on VSEL, ES cells, and iPS cells. PK: I frequently have readers of my blog ask questions about VSEL. They seem puzzled and unsure of
Interview with NeoStem CEO Robin Smith Part 2: VSEL, ES cells, and iPS cells Read More »
I recently met the CEO of NeoStem, Dr. Robin Smith, at the 2012 World Stem Cell Summit in Florida. We had a great talk and I invited Dr. Smith to do an interview for my blog. She agreed and has provided very frank answers to my questions, some of which I think were very difficult
Interview with NeoStem CEO Robin Smith Part 1 Read More »