Search Results for: us stem cell

‘So you don’t get eyeball in your hand’: Swedish Medical Center ‘infomercial’

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Swedish-Adam-Pourcho-Regenerative-Medicine

Swedish Medical Center in Seattle is now marketing regenerative medicine therapies including some things that in my view are not really scientifically proven to work including via an infomercial. This is part of a bigger trend where more legit medical centers have begun selling regenerative medicine “treatments” that are still being developed. Sometimes they even […]

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When the state & ‘rogue’ scientists collide: case of China & CRISPR baby guy He Jiankui (贺建奎)

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He-Jiankui-贺建奎

What happens next to He Jiankui (贺建奎) or as some people now refer to him, the “CRISPR baby guy”? China has a challenging situation to resolve here, but such conflicts between scientists and governments have happened regularly in history. When scientists go “rogue” (i.e. don’t conform to norms or ethical standards in an extreme way or

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Trying to connect the dots on CRISPR baby story paints a dark, cloudy picture

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connect-the-dots

When I was a little kid I played this game called “connect the dots” or “dot-to-dot”, where you draw a line from dot-to-dot in numerical order and at some point a picture starts to emerge. I think kids and even some adults still play this today. They even come in extreme versions with hundreds or

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Hope on Parkinson’s front: Japan IPSC trial 1st patient

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Fig-3i-Kikuchi-et-al.-Nature-2017-IPS-cell-Parkinsons-

In Parkinson’s Disease patients develop neurological dysfunction as they lose a special kind of brain cell called dopaminergic (or dopamine) neurons. While a number of different approaches to this disease have been studied for decades, nothing has proven particularly successful in slowing its progression. As a result there has been a big need for novel thinking

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Magenta Therapeutics Good News-Bad News Trial Data

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Magenta

Magenta Therapeutics is a biotech company with a portfolio including stem cell products. Their most well known investigational drug product is an expanded umbilical cord stem cell product called MGTA-456, an “ex-Novartis” product. Magenta just released new trial data on MGTA-456, which I see as a case of good news-bad news, and investors seem to

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Digesting new esophageal organoids papers

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Esophageal-organoids

There’s a new paper in Cell Stem Cell on esophageal organoids that has really caught people’s attention. It is entitled, “3D Modeling of Esophageal Development using Human PSC-Derived Basal Progenitors Reveals a Critical Role for Notch Signaling.” It comes from a team led by Jianwen Que. Update: I didn’t realize when I first did this post that

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FDA outlines potential crackdown on Clinicaltrials.gov offenders

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Anderson-et-al-Clinicaltrials.gov_

Clinicaltrials.gov is a wonderful resource for its many users, whether a patient searching for a clinical trial to actually participate in or someone doing research as I have done, but it’s not perfect and some sponsors have been breaking the rules regarding its use. It’s a major problem in fact. Based on new draft guidance

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ViaCyte & CRISPR Therapeutics team up to battle diabetes

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ViaCyte, cell therapy for diabetes

What happens when one of the most exciting stem cell biotechs ViaCyte teams up with a firm like CRISPR Therapeutics to use a combination of gene editing and cell therapy? Hopefully a synergistic partnership emerges that in this case can develop an effective stem cell-based therapy for diabetes. You can see a press release on

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Vampire facial update: Kardashian has regrets, others maybe infections

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vampire facials

What the devil is a vampire facial? I first heard about the vampire facial, sometimes also called a “vampire facelift” when professional celebrity Kim Kardashian reportedly got one. I weighed in on that five years ago here. There was some question in how this procedure was portrayed as to whether it involved stem cells, which

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