Today I’m posting about pet peeves in the science lab. Who doesn’t have some of those? And, yeah, we are all probably guilty at one time or another of driving other people a bit nuts with our own idiosyncrasies that are their pet peeves. This post is another in my “Elephant in the Lab” series about difficult, but important […]
Ten lab pet peeves: elephant in the lab series Read More »
Some American stem cell clinics that operate without FDA approval can give the appearance of being in the mainstream of academic stem cell research. Sometimes they go a step further to hint at or even say that they have some kind of federal approval as we saw in the past with the Stem.md website. Why
I recently interviewed leading genomics scientist George Church on the ways that trends in genomics are changing our world. We also discussed the possibility of heritable human genetic modification. These days we more often call this “CRISPR babies.” His answers suggest that genomics and gene editing are poised to radically change our world. They could literally
George Church on Germline Human Genetic Modification Read More »
It’s been exciting to watch the recent developments in using stem cells as the basis for treatments for Type I Diabetes. One of the major players in this arena is the privately-held company, ViaCyte. In this post, I interview ViaCyte President and CEO, Paul Laikind. The topics include their VC-01 product, the Encaptra device, an update on
ViaCyte CEO Laikind Interview: Trial Update, Melton, & Future Read More »
Dr. Christopher Fasano, principal investigator at the Neural Stem Cell Institute and creator and host of THE Stem Cell Podcast founded a unique stem cell meeting in 2013. In this short interview I find out about The Next-Gen Stem Cell Conference (to be held this year on May 6-7) and how it differs from the
The Scoop on Cool Next-Gen Stem Cell Conference Read More »
On Thursday here at UC Davis School of Medicine we held our second annual Stem Cell Ethics Symposium. The symposium was organized by Drs. Mark Yarborough and Nanette Joyce as well as me. In this post I report on key take homes from the meeting and summarize the specific talks. As far as I know, this is one of the few
Meeting review of unique stem cell ethics symposium @UCDAVIS Read More »
NatureNews is a science news outlet so I’ve been wondering what the heck the deal is with their strongly biased news coverage of the mitochondrial transfer 3-person IVF technology debate. By way of context, I like NatureNews and am a regular reader, but their coverage of the mitochondrial transfer debate has been completely one-sided and inaccurate. Their
Nature Biased News Coverage of 3-Person IVF Read More »
It’s been somewhat of a helter-skelter time for the new technology often referred to as 3-person IVF or mitochondrial transfer as the UK considers whether to legalize this experimental technology for use in humans. I believe that this technology is not ready now for use in humans and for more background on why as well
Myths about 3-person IVF mitochondrial transfer Read More »
When I started blogging in 2010 the stem cell arena was a very different place including the fact I could count the number of US stem cell clinics on one hand. This blog, called The Niche for many years, was just “Knoepfler Stem Cell Blog” back then. Also, back then the hot topic was the
Stem cell clinics, FDA, & giant, unapproved for-profit human experiments Read More »
What’s the deal with the tension between José Silva and Jacob Hanna over pluripotency? Researchers probing how to reprogram cells into powerful stem cells (induced pluripotent stem cells or IPSCs) and what the molecular mechanisms are behind this process have become entangled in a conflict. Of course over the years scientists including stem cell scientists have
Silva Comments on MBD3/NuRD Debate with Jacob Hanna Read More »