After six and a half years blogging here, I’ve seen so much weird stuff. Not all of it was even “bloggable” due to its crazy, not-safe-for-work nature. For TGIF this week, here are 10 of the weirdest posts from this blog over the years. Where’s the Beef? Reality Check on Stem Cell Test Tube Burger […]
Some weird posts: testicle soup, Kim Kardashian, zombies Read More »
When potentially game changing new technologies are reported such as NgAgo gene editing, both scientists and the public get excited, but especially if such new reports stem from a single paper it is wise to take a cautious approach for a while. The key question is whether the new findings will turn out to be
Nature Biotechnology looking at NgAgo paper amidst reproducibility concerns Read More »
The REGROW Act is a bill that seeks to lessen the regulatory burden to accelerate getting stem cells to patients more quickly, but it over-reaches so much that it would almost certainly do harm to patients and maybe to the stem cell field as a whole. The REGROW Act, which is sponsored by Senator Mark
REGROW Act 2.0 still no-go with big risks to patients & field Read More »
By Elliot Hosman Summary. A campaign calling for a moratorium on using CRISPR in human embryos was launched by a prominent French organization fighting for narrow understandings of life and family. A recent campaign calling for a ban on “transgenic” human embryos was launched by one of France’s most prominent organizations fighting for “science”-backed “one-man-one-woman”
Hateful politics infiltrate human genome editing debate in France Read More »
Starting tomorrow I’m going to be at the ISSCR 2016 meeting live blogging it in San Francisco. The annual ISSCR meeting is a great place to hear about all the latest research from basic findings to reports on pre-clinical and clinical studies. There are always valuable and unique insights from chatting with people too. I
Live Blogging ISSCR 2016 SFO Read More »
Today a new Nature paper from Dr. Mary Herbert’s group in the UK has found a key problem with mitochondrial replacement therapy that fits with data from others. Mitochondrial replacement data The goal of preventing mitochondrial disease using various kinds of genome transfer technologies is a noble one, but mitochondrial replacement therapy has faced a
New Herbert lab Nature paper reinforces mitochondrial replacement Achilles heel Read More »
Adult stem cell biotech Mesoblast ($MESO) is in the unusual situation currently of having its stock on hold. This is a relatively rare event and usually portends some kind of major news. The hold is expected to run from June 1 to June 10. Mesoblast will announce ““material corporate developments with respect to certain assets
Mesoblast stock on hold: Poll if you expect good or bad news Read More »
The second session at our CRISPR meeting was really powerful. As with other posts from the UC Davis CRISPR meeting, since I was taking notes on the fly during this session, this post is a stream of bits from the different talks, often trying to capture the essence of key questions or ideas as the speakers
UC Davis CRISPR Meeting Panel: A View from the Trenches on Human Disease Read More »
The gene editing technology CRISPR has been arguably the top story in the biomedical world in the last two years, but going forward there is a CRISPR challenger in upstart gene editing technology NgAgo. For more background on NgAgo and the key first published paper on its genetic modification characteristics see my post here. In the comments on that
NgAgo a-go-go: main bullet points on upstart CRISPR challenger Read More »
Why can there be huge clinical trial fees for participants? I am often critical of for-profit stem cell clinics on this blog for numerous reasons. For instance, one thing that concerns me greatly about these clinics is that they charge patients to get experimental “treatments” that have not been proven to be safe or effective. But
Huge clinical trial fees allowed by FDA at times, details often secret Read More »