You can jailbreak your iPhone, but perhaps you can jailbreak a cell too to turn it into a stem cell. In his very cool talk up here at the Till & McCulloch Meeting on Stem Cells yesterday, Andras Nagy characterized the reprogramming process to make iPS cells as “jailbreaking” cell fate. Nagy described some intriguing studies done on […]
Jailbreak Cell Fate to Reprogram Stem Cells Read More »
What is “radically deterministic” cellular reprogramming? Jacob Hanna’s lab recently published a very high profile Nature paper on nearly 100% efficient iPS cell formation based on targeting a factor called Mbd3. This super efficiency is a major departure from past reported efficiencies. This morning here at the Till & McCulloch Stem Cell Meeting in Banff,
Jacob Hanna on Radically Deterministic Reprogramming @TMM2013 Read More »
I’m excited to report that UC Berkeley’s Student Society of Stem Cell Research (SSSCR) is presenting its first annual Stem Cell Conference. The meeting is supported by CIRM and UC Berkeley’s Stem Cell Center. I’m also honored to be one of the speakers. You can get tickets (very affordable at $5 each) and learn more
UC Berkeley 1st Annual Stem Cell Conference Read More »
I’m excited about a new development on my stem cell book. It should be available on Amazon in E-book form in 2 days on Friday, September 27th for $22. It looks like you can already get the E-book on the publisher’s site here today. The top 2 questions I’ve been asked lately about what I
More on my new stem cell book & how to get 30% off Read More »
Many patients ask me what questions they should be asking doctors and stem cell clinics about possible stem cell therapies. Here is my top 10 list of key items (in both graphic summarized form and detailed text form) that you need to know about and questions about a potential stem cell therapy. Some of these
Questions List to Bring With You to the Stem Cell Clinic Read More »
When it comes to science communication or “scicomm”, how are scientists doing these days? Scientists want to stay up to speed on all the latest technological developments whether it is new equipment or new methods. To not stay up to speed on these techno innovations would be a huge mistake as a scientist. You might
How to avoid being an anachronism on scicomm Read More »
Stem cell technology is poised to wow the world with biomedical advances in the coming decades and Japan wants to lead the way. They want to forge ahead particularly with applications that focus on a relatively new kind of stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells. Japanese researcher, Shinya Yamanaka, first reported production
Japan Aiming For a Commanding Position on New Stem Cells Read More »
Let’s putting on our “thinking caps”….er, extra brains, get our geek on, and have some fun imagining where stem cell technology may lead us in the coming century. Unhappy with the one brain you have? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a 2nd one too? A new one? Researchers have grown mini brain-like structures from
What would you do with an extra brain? Read More »
Some stem cell clinics are pressuring their own patients into potentially breaking federal law through something like smuggling. A big problem for certain clinics is how to bring the paying American customer (i.e. the patient) and the biological product that they are selling derived from the patient’s stem cells together outside the reach of the
Patient Advisory: Sneaking Stem Cells Out of USA May Be Illegal Smuggling Read More »
There is a lot of talk about cloning celebrities so could we be seeing John Lennon again in the form of a clone? If a Canadian dentist named Michael Zuk has his way, the late Beatle may be back. In his quest to get back Lennon, Zuk reportedly purchased an old molar that once had
Imagine Cloning John Lennon From Old Molar Read More »