I’m playing catch-up on some reading given how busy I’ve been and this includes a groundbreaking NEJM pub on CRISPR for Sickle Cell and Thalassemia. CRISPR for Sickle Cell From December, here’s the key paper in the NEJM: CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing for Sickle Cell Disease and β-Thalassemia. There’s a lot to like about this clinical […]
Recommended reads: CRISPR for Sickle Cell, Parkinson’s, & more Read More »
The paper of the week reports using base-editing, a kind of gene-editing, to reverse mutations associated with rapid aging syndromes, generally called progeria, but there are a lot of other interesting pubs to recommend for reading this week. I go over it all in this post. Gene-editing to fight premature aging syndromes In vivo base
Weekly reads & paper of the week: gene-editing vs. aging Read More »
What to read when there are almost an endless number of stem cell and regenerative medicine pubs? Here are some suggestions including what I would say is a very unusual Nature paper on making egg cells from stem cells. If this could be done safely with human cells all the way to functional eggs, would
Recommended regenerative medicine reads: making eggs, retraction, freezing, more Read More »
Today’s The Niche recommended weekly reads post includes both primary papers and also a few media pieces. I’m especially interested in the first piece on making more complex embryo-like structures from ES cells. This is a long way from just making embryoid bodies or EBs. At the end of the post I discuss an article
Weekly The Niche reads: lab-grown embryos & thymus, more Read More »
Would you eat lab grown meat? Envision biting into a warm juicy burger with all the trimmings. Lab grown meat intro If you are a burger fan, your mouth may already be watering. Or maybe you prefer steak or bacon? If you are a vegetarian or animal welfare advocate, however, you might be rather disturbed
Not Old MacDonald’s Farm: is the future lab grown meat? Read More »
I’ve been asked many times over the years if stem cell injections at for-profit clinics can help brain function, but recently the more common query is whether brain supplements such as Prevagen actually work. I’m skeptical of both unproven stem cell injections and supplements that are supposed to somehow help the brain, but some of
Jellyfish on the brain: a critical look at Prevagen Read More »
The stem cell field has puzzled on and off for years over a constellation of papers on purported stem cells including so-called VSEL and MUSE cells. Many of us haven’t been convinced that these are real stem cells. I see VSEL and MUSE fitting into a larger pattern of dubious stem cell claims including the STAP
STAP cell deja vu? 28 VSEL papers flagged by Bik Read More »
The COVID-19 pandemic is tearing through the country right as we are starting into the holiday season, but the wheels of science including cell biology keep going and we keep reading all the great work. What news or papers caught your eye? Here are some of the things I have on my list of reading.
Weekend cell biology reads: Mesoblast COVID-19 deal, pubs 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 »
It’s usually a tossup as to whether my weekly reads skew more towards stem cells/regenerative medicine or cancer. Other times they are more enriched for genomics and epigenetics articles. Seeds of cancer in normal skin, Nature News & Views Engineering synthetic morphogen systems that can program multicellular patterning, Science. Pig fat can be used to
Regenerative reads: pig fat, cancer, organoids, more Read More »