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 […]
Hope on Parkinson’s front: Japan IPSC trial 1st patient Read More »
The stem cell clinic industry selling unapproved “therapies” is ubiquitous and yet somehow still growing it seems. Many of us are encountering more of them including via ads and the clinics are basically all over the place. What should someone do if they see or have had a bad experience with a stem cell clinic
Report a bad clinic Read More »
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
Magenta Therapeutics Good News-Bad News Trial Data Read More »
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
Digesting new esophageal organoids papers Read More »
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 Based on new draft guidance
FDA outlines potential crackdown on Clinicaltrials.gov offenders Read More »
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
ViaCyte & CRISPR Therapeutics team up to battle diabetes Read More »
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
Vampire facial update: Kardashian has regrets, others maybe infections Read More »
Time to sell exosome therapies to patients? No. Some stem cell clinics and related firms are looking for new ways to make profits and toward that goal a few have latched onto the legitimate buzz around exosome research. What are exosomes? Imagine if you could bubble up a pea-sized sphere off your skin full of
As exosome work advances, clinics pitch unproven therapies to patients Read More »
Our California stem cell agency, CIRM, started as a baby even before I came to California in 2006 to start my lab here at UC Davis School of Medicine, but now CIRM or to use its full name the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is I’d say a full-grown, mature adult at about age 13
Poll on refunding CIRM on eve of informational legislative hearing Read More »
When you get an FDA warning letter (like if you are a non-compliant stem cell clinic) you generally aren’t feeling too well after reading it, but now there’s an extra thing to worry about according to the FDA. A fake FDA warning letter. Apparently 3-dozen or more of these fake FDA warning letters sparked complains
Fake FDA warning letter scam Read More »