This blog is called The Niche so publications on the stem cell niche often catch my eye even if that’s not something my own lab directly works on much. So today’s recommended reads will start with two papers on the stem cell niche. The first one focused on the niche gone wrong. The stem cell […]
Recommend reads: stem cell niche, Georgia & FTC on clinics, more Read More »
Sometimes a paper really catches your eye like a new Cell Stem Cell pub reporting eye-like structures grown on brain organoids. The paper is Human brain organoids assemble functionally integrated bilateral optic vesicles. Let’s take a quick look at this paper, its context, and the potential big-picture implications. Brain organoids with “eyes”? At first glance,
A look at “eyes on the brain organoids” Cell Stem Cell paper Read More »
Because of blogging here on The Niche and people giving me tips I often can see trends before they fully surface and a troubling new one is intranasal stem cell delivery by unproven clinics. Over the past year I have heard of many clinics now offering this approach. I’ve seen this in marketing and heard
Clinics turning to potentially dangerous intranasal stem cell delivery Read More »
The other day I gave a talk in part about stem cell hype and mentioned as an example how the idea of already doing stem cell therapy for autism seems so misguided to me now. On the whole, in my view there are major downsides and risks for autistic kids whose parents are already having
Fact-checking stem cell therapy for autism: still a risky idea Read More »
This edition of The Niche weekly reads has a bit more good news than usual including on stem cell transplants. It’s nice to see positive developments like some recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplants being able to stay at home afterwards. Also, a reminder. You have until July 31 to enter our stem cell video
The FDA grace period for stem cell clinics and others using regenerative medicine products like stem cells is over. It appears the agency is serious about enforcement moving forward. They have released several statements about the end of what they call the “enforcement discretion” period, which just means in English a grace period for marketers
Translating the FDA’s Q&A on end of stem cell grace period Read More »
How can you tell who to trust in the world of stem cell therapy? What information can a patient trust? Once upon a time about a dozen years ago it seemed a much simpler question. There were universities and biotech companies doing legit research as well as clinical trials, and there were physicians doing bone
Stem cell therapy: the good, the bad, & the muddy waters Read More »
The paper of the week is from Science on making ovarian follicles and actual eggs from stem cells. It’s just in mice, but this line of work tends to stir people up. We’ll dive into that in a moment. But first some good news. We’re up to 146 subscribers on our stem cell YouTube channel
Weekly reads: stem cells to gametes, no PRP benefit, WHO CRISPR, pubs Read More »
Could stem cell Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) research provide a potential path to future treatment or preventative measures? The goal of today’s post is to provide a review of the state of the field in this area including possible approaches and challenges. You can watch a video covering the topic by Dr. Paul Knoepfler below on
Stem cell Alzheimer’s disease research Read More »
The paper of the week is An isoform of Dicer protects mammalian stem cells against multiple RNA viruses published in Science. The take-home from the abstract is that the data, “demonstrate that mammalian stem cells can protect themselves from some RNA viruses by expressing an alternatively spliced isoform of the enzyme Dicer called aviD, which potentiates