NFL Hall of Fame player Bart Starr has reportedly turned to stem cells for hope after having a series of strokes in 2014. The Starr family made a statement that Bart, now 81 years old, was accepted into a clinical trial using stem cells. This seems similar to the stem cell path that the family […]
In Bart Starr stem cell treatment for stroke, following Howe to Mexico? Read More »
At the recent RPI stem cell and bioengineering meeting, the Neural Stem Cell Institute’s Sally Temple talked about her group’s intriguing retinal pigmented epithelial cell (RPE) research. With the broad focus of attention in the world of RPEs mostly on those derived from either human ESC or IPSC, it was exciting to here about the
Sally Temple on adult RPEs for vision impairment, IND, & more Read More »
Last week I attended and spoke at a stem cell meeting at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). It was entitled, “Bioengineering and Stem Cell Research”. It was a great meeting with many interesting talks. Below I write about some of the talks and themes of the meeting. Still to come later this week I will do a second post entirely
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute stem cell meeting report Read More »
Popular Science recently did a piece on stem cell clinics that has raised some red flags. The concerns in this case are not necessarily about the clinics per se, but rather the actual article itself. There are a lot of stem cell clinics out there and for years they had a pretty consistent strategy of
Popular Science stem cell clinic article itself raising some red flags Read More »
At a genetic level, just how much do each of us human beings vary from each other in our total genome sequence? The number I was taught in Genetics at some point was that the genomes of any two human beings are likely to be 99.9% identical. So only about 1 out of 1,000 bp
How much human genetic variability is there really? Read More »
Last week I attended Biotech & the Ethical Imagination (BEINGS 2015), the summit I previewed on this blog back in early May. It many ways the summit lived up to its lofty ambitions. Steven Pinker kicked off the event by emphasizing the power and importance of biomedical research, noting that almost everyone is affected by
Recap of BEINGS 2015 Meeting by Aaron Levine: Shaping Future of Cellular Biotech Read More »
Many of us scientists, ethicists, and legal scholars are working on educational outreach to the public on the potential use of gene editing technologies like CRISPR to genetically modify human beings, but clearly there’s a long way to go and much more to do on this front. By the way, you may find this new
Public polling on human gene editing, moratorium Read More »
Last Thursday I participated in a meeting at Stanford Law School on human germline genetic modification hosted by Hank Greely (pictured at left), Professor of Law and Genetics at Stanford. The meeting was entitled, “Human Germline Modification: Medicine, Science, Ethics, and Law”. The panel included in addition to Hank and me, the following speakers: Marcy Darnovsky, Executive Director of
Stanford Human Germline Modification Meeting: Medicine, Science, Ethics, & Law Read More »
One of the many interesting ways in which “stem cells” are named in different languages around the world is “mother cells”. For example, in Spanish, you can learn more about these “mother cells” here in ¿Qué son las células madre? On Mother’s Day it is worth thinking about where the stem cell field stands at this
Stem cells on Mother’s Day, clinical trials, and more Read More »
What is a GMO? I realized a few years ago that I really should know a lot more about the whole debate over genetically modified (GM) organisms (GMOs). What are the facts on GMOs? As a scientist who has for many years done amongst other things genetics research including making and studying so-called “knockout mice”
GMO: Why 3 Such Difficult Little Letters? Read More »