After the COVID-19 pandemic started clinical trials quickly sprouted up to test various kinds of cell therapy for COVID-19 including stem cells. The most common rationale for this approach is to suppress damaging overactive immune responses. Trials of cell therapy for COVID-19 including stem cells I’ve written quite a lot about these cellular medicine and […]
Our new paper assessing trials of cell therapy for COVID-19 Read More »
Sometimes the recommended weekly stem cell reads are just a bunch of papers I find intriguing, but more often they include at least one or more things that are not necessarily “recommended”. Instead these are items that stimulate discussion and debate. Today’s post includes one such complicated area on cord MSCs related to COVID-19 plus
Weekly stem cell reads: Pew, cord cells for COVID, more Read More »
Professor Joanne Kurtzberg’s clinical work at the Duke Autism Center on umbilical cord blood for autism and cerebral palsy (CP) involves a partnership with a publicly-traded cord blood banking firm called Cryo-Cell. Kurtzberg is also the Medical Director at the firm. In addition they have intellectual property in this area. The Duke team’s efforts, including
Duke & Cryo-Cell plan big clinic for unproven infusions of kids Read More »
A firm called Utah Cord Bank has been in the news related to stem cell clinics over the past year or two. Now they have received an FDA Warning Letter for a variety of manufacturing issues. Utah Cord Bank Background In terms of some brief backstory, Utah Cord Bank first popped up on my radar
FDA warning to stem cell clinic supplier Utah Cord Bank Read More »
The journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine has a long track record of publishing great work. I also have a lot of respect for the editors there and I’ve published there myself. But a few recent events have sparked concerns including over possible undisclosed conflicts of interest in some papers there about cord blood for autism.
Cord conflicts at the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine Read More »
This was a busy week for me working on a grant due Friday and a bunch of other stuff including happily analyzing a bunch of data, but there were tons of interesting papers recently including on pluripotency. California stem cell clinic court case on in the background Along the way this week I was occasionally
Weekly reads: court case, cancer stem cells, skin, pluripotency, & more Read More »
Mere weeks into the COVID pandemic, stunning graphics began to appear depicting the path of devastation of SARS-CoV-2 through a human lung. It’s only recently that we’ve come to understand what, exactly, is happening on a cellular level. The new view is thanks to single-cell RNA-sequencing, which analyzes the abundance of messenger RNAs in individual
COVID Traps Alveoli Cells in a Curious Progenitor State, Squelching Lung Regeneration Read More »
Does it make any sense medically or scientifically to use stem cell therapy for pain or neuropathy? There isn’t much solid evidence that this is a good way to go. However, there’s a vast scope of research ongoing in this area. Stem cell clinics have been earning millions of dollars selling this idea too. The
Fact-check of stem cell therapy for pain & neuropathy Read More »
I got some great entries for our The Niche stem cell picture contest. While I expected many bright colorful images, every year some of the pictures surprise me in certain ways. There was another surprise in that two entrants in the contest, both Assistant Professors, are sisters. A talented family! You can see the previous
The Niche stem cell picture contest winners: gut & astrocytes Read More »
Stem cell clinics violating federal regulations have been a major problem for the FDA. Next month the FDA faces a historic moment on this problem. A grace period for clinics to become FDA compliant ends in May. Even so, it appears that hundreds of clinics will remain non-compliant after that. Some of the worst clinics