Something called a P shot has sparked interest from some men interested in high-risk attempts at enhancement. The goal of today’s review post is to fact-check P shots. They’re sold for supposed penis enhancement or to address erectile dysfunction (ED). I’ll also fact-check so-called O shot stabs at vaginal rejuvenation or enhancement. These are both […]
Reviews of P shot & O shot stabs at sexual enhancement Read More »
We’ll start with a story related to possible research misconduct, Stanford’s President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, and Science Magazine. In some ways the news on Science itself could be the bigger long-term story. Marc Tessier-Lavigne pub investigation, Science oops moment Here’s some of the coverage: Stanford investigates potential misconduct in president’s research, Science. Multiple publications of Marc Tessier-Lavigne
Weekly reads: Marc Tessier-Lavigne probe, Neuralink on the brain, Ras unchained Read More »
I get a lot of questions about stem cells for ALS and more recently people have been specifically interested in NurOwn from BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics. Recently, the FDA denied BrainStorm’s request for a BLA for NurOwn. The company felt its Phase III trial was encouraging. It sounds like they will move forward with a follow-up
Weekly reads: NurOwn, key gene screen, MS, Croce mess Read More »
Lately it seems like something called Mastodon is on the minds of many a Twitter user. There is a wave of people tweeting “let’s dump Twitter and go to Mastodon now that Musk has taken over!” However, so far I don’t see Mastodon as a solid alternative to the admittedly annoyingly musky Twitter. I do
What is Mastodon & why so far it’s a clunky alternative to Twitter Read More »
If you’ve never heard of the KRAS G12C mutation, it’s a particularly frightening mutation present in numerous cancers. Like the MYC oncogene, many people view mutations in RAS as undruggable, but new efforts show some glimmers of hope. The drug Sotorasib has been approved by the FDA to target the KRAS G12C mutation. Here’s a
Weekly reads: KRAS G12C, eLife journal controversy, bird iPSCs Read More »
When you are a stem cell biologist and especially if you do a blog, you sometimes run across very strange things like a chimera cat. In this case, I stumbled on the whole topic of chimeric cats because I was searching for info on chimeric rats on Google. Of course, I was. It’s kind of
Weekly reads: chimera cat vs. chimeric rat, cheap sequencing, more Read More »
As we age a higher proportion of our cells end up in a senescent state, which has sparked interest in senolytic drugs and a broader area called senolytics research. The goal of today’s post is to give you an overview of this important area. How much data are there on efficacy or safety? Is the
What are senolytics? Drugs, activator, supplements, risks Read More »
Patients regularly reach out and ask me about something called HSCT. “What is HSCT?” and is it proven as a therapy? Often the patients asking about this have multiple sclerosis (MS) or some other autoimmune disease. I’m not a physician so I can’t give medical advice, but as a stem cell biologist here at UC
What is HSCT & its possible roles in MS treatment? Read More »
An FDA FOIA dump of text messages of former Commissioner Stephen Hahn suggests that a Texas regenerative firm called Direct Biologics benefited from political pressure on him in mid-2020. Then he was asked again to help in early 2021. This was shortly before he resigned at the start of the Biden Administration. The push came from
FDA leader Stephen Hahn was pressured to aid Texas firm Direct Biologics Read More »
There was a time when I thought transdifferentiation based approaches might quickly move into clinical trials. Then things kind of cooled off. We didn’t see many papers reporting methods to transdifferentiate cells. I still think that this technology, sometimes called direct reprogramming, has major potential. A new paper on making human brain cells this way got
Paper sparks renewed interest in transdifferentiation & clinical potential Read More »