Search Results for: ted talk

Insightful interview with Arnold Caplan: Part 1: MSC history, nomenclature, & properties

/ / 2 Comments

A few days ago I had a long, very enjoyable phone conversation with the father of the mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) field, Dr. Arnold Caplan. Dr. Caplan is Professor of Biology, Director Skeletal Research Center at Case Western. He coined the phrase “mesenchymal stem cell” in the late 1980s. I’m going to break the interview […]

Insightful interview with Arnold Caplan: Part 1: MSC history, nomenclature, & properties Read More »

Giant goldfish teach researchers about stem cell treatments

/ / 1 Comment

What can a giant goldfish teach stem cell researchers about clinical use of the cells? It turns out, a great deal! A few weeks ago researchers from my home institution UC Davis and the US Forest Service made headlines with reported catches of giant goldfish in Lake Tahoe. These are not your grandad’s pond’s “big”

Giant goldfish teach researchers about stem cell treatments Read More »

Bald heads & big smiles: St. Baldrick’s 2013 Sac Event Inspires

/

Last night there was a great fund-raising event for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation for children’s cancer research here in Sacramento. I was honored to captain the UC Davis School of Medicine Team (see at left). So far we have raised almost $2,500 for St. Baldrick’s. Please consider pitching in via this link. You can help

Bald heads & big smiles: St. Baldrick’s 2013 Sac Event Inspires Read More »

Recruiter-patients: how common & corrupt is this practice at US stem cell clinics?

/ / 2 Comments

How do dubious stem cell clinics get patients in the door to make money? In part they do this via the Internet via the clinics’ own websites. There are also patient websites, some secret, which may serve ad recruitment tools for specific clinics. A more general tactic may be the use of so-called “recruiter-patients”. There

Recruiter-patients: how common & corrupt is this practice at US stem cell clinics? Read More »

The dangers of stem cell self-experimentation: cartoon & discussion

/ / 8 Comments

A concerning trend in the for-profit stem cell field, but one that does not get enough attention, is self-experimentation by those selling (often unlicensed) stem cell treatments. In other words, the stem cell clinic leaders and docs often not only sell stem cell treatments to patients, but also they give themselves the same treatments, often repeatedly.

The dangers of stem cell self-experimentation: cartoon & discussion Read More »

Interview with Regenerative Surgeon, Dr. Allan Wu

/

Over the last few weeks, I have enjoyed talking with and interviewing Dr. Allan Wu, of The Morrow Institute on stem cell cosmetic procedures. I was impressed greatly by his talk at the World Stem Cell Summit last year. Dr. Wu is a fellowship trained Surgical Molecular Biologist with a background in Molecular Embryology and a board

Interview with Regenerative Surgeon, Dr. Allan Wu Read More »

Critically reading science papers: response to patient on MS stem cell literature

/ / 22 Comments

One of the most important elements of science is critical reading of papers. Most of us come into science as undergrads feeling somewhat naive about what we read in papers. Our default tendency is to believe most or all that we read as “true”. As we get more experienced, we realize that in fact if

Critically reading science papers: response to patient on MS stem cell literature Read More »

Interview with NeoStem CEO Robin Smith Part 2: VSEL, ES cells, and iPS cells

/ / 2 Comments

I recently did a Q&A interview with NeoStem CEO Dr. Robin Smith. I posted Part 1 of that interview a few days ago here. Now we have part two focused on VSEL, ES cells, and iPS cells. PK: I frequently have readers of my blog ask questions about VSEL. They seem puzzled and unsure of

Interview with NeoStem CEO Robin Smith Part 2: VSEL, ES cells, and iPS cells Read More »