I remember seeing a cowboy-type TV show when I was a little kid where a guy pulled into town not slinging guns but selling snake oil. He stood right up on his wagon and started pitching the wonders of what he was selling. He had some buyers pretty quick. Eventually, someone like a sheriff or […]
Snake oil history from century old elixirs to fake stem cells Read More »
I remember the first time I ran across an ad for a stem cell face cream and it wasn’t pretty. This was about 10 years ago. The stem cell cream in question made several claims that seemed highly doubtful. In a sense what the cream’s maker was selling was the idea of stem cell-based youth
Fact-checking stem cell face cream: less than face value Read More »
One of the most common questions I’ve gotten over the last decade is, “how much does stem cell therapy cost?” They actually seem most often to want to know more specifically how much it should cost. To try to authoritatively answer this now in 2023 we need data from the present and past along with expert
How much does stem cell therapy cost in 2023? 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 »
Our mission here on The Niche is primarily educational. We aim to make a transformative difference in educating readers across the globe about stem cells, regenerative medicine, and innovative biomedical science more generally including CRISPR gene editing. A major part of that mission involves fact-checking various medical claims about stem cells and other biologics like
Our Educational Mission on The Niche Stem Cell Site 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 FTC has sharply increased its oversight activities against stem cell and regenerative clinic firms. These new actions include quite a few warning letters. Here is the FTC database for COVID-19-related warning letters. Note that recently the FTC added a new, helpful option to view all of its warning letters here. It’s a good source
FTC fires off many warnings to stem cell clinics on COVID-19 Read More »
One of the most common questions that patients have asked me over the last decade is, “how much does stem cell therapy cost?” They actually seem most often to want to know more specifically how much the treatments should cost. To try to authoritatively answer this we need data from the present and past along
How much does stem cell therapy cost in 2022? Read More »
Over the years I’ve done a variety of videos that ended up on YouTube. While most of these were stem cell videos, some deal with other important topics such as CRISPR of human embryos. We now also have a dedicated channel on YouTube The Stem Cell Channel. Check it out and follow for the latest
Remember our old friends Liveyon? Their leader John Kosolcharoen? Liveyon’s continuing metamorphosis This biologics supply firm has gone through several stages of corporate metamorphosis as a supplier of biologics including at first a purported living umbilical cord stem cell product. That stem cell thrust ultimately landed a dozen or more people in the hospital as
Liveyon is back (again) with unproven exosome product Read More »