My lab is focused in part on chromatin states in stem cells and cancer including heterochromatin. In fact, my lab’s website is chromatin.com. Heterochromatin is dense, often inactive chromatin. By H&E staining and electron microscopy, heterochromatin looks dark compared to the rest of the nucleus, largely composed of euchromatin. Toward the end of my postdoc […]
Weekly reads: heterochromatin, H3.3, Mesoblast bump Read More »
So many things go wrong during the lead up to clinically-evident Alzheimer’s disease. This complex disease pathway has, in turn, led to a vast array of approaches to try to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s. Most of these efforts one way or another have something to do with the amyloid plaques and tangles that accumulate in the
Last week one of the most popular stories was about a preprint from a mammoth de-extinction research group led by George Church having made elephant stem cells. I finally got a chance to look carefully at their preprint. Elephant stem cells preprint and mammoth de-extinction The elephant stem cells preprint has solid data. It looks like
Weekly reads: elephant stem cells, RIP Connie Eaves, AI cell biology Read More »
Anti-aging might already be the big regenerative medicine story of 2024 and it’s only early March. Anti-aging hype going to the dogs? One of my 20 stem cell and regenerative medicine predictions for 2024 was that longevity would continue to make big news including in some not-so-great ways. In just over two months there has
Vertex Pharmaceuticals has a lot going for it right now on the cell therapy front. For instance, they have the strongest type 1 diabetes cell therapy pipeline after some recent acquisitions. Still it’s not a simple matter to succeed in the cell therapy space even with one therapy for one targeted disease. Trials are tough
Weekly reads: Vertex, stem cells for MS, Athersys, 900-day paper review at Nature Read More »
Are small clusters of cells that make up 5-day-old human embryos equivalent to children? Biologically and in terms of just common sense, the answer is “no.” These tiny spheres have around 100 cells and no organs. Actual people have many trillions of cells, brains, and other organs. Alabama law on embryos may block IVF About
What happens during brain aging and how can we tell if dementia is coming? Are there particular early hallmarks? There are an increasing number of medical tests for predicting or detecting dementia. Alzheimer’s disease can often be detected early. But what do patients or their doctors do with such information? Until recently there weren’t any
Weekly reads: brain aging, perinatal stem cell clinics, $1M lab meat fine bill Read More »
There’s a fascinating type of olfactory cell. These so-called tuft cells have unusual characteristics, especially for nose cells. I had never heard of them before until reading a new article. The inside of the nose may not seem like a very attractive place but there are cool “nose stem cells” in there. More broadly, there
Weekly reads: cool olfactory tuft cells, T-cell therapy, NK cells Read More »
Readers of The Niche have asked me many questions about stem cells for autoimmune disease but the puzzle of why women get these conditions more often than men hasn’t come up before here. For instance, why is MS so much more common in women than men? It’s remained somewhat of a mystery over the years.
Placental biologics firm MiMedx and exosome company Kimera Labs both recently received FDA warning letters. The letter to MiMedx was related to its placental biologics products and procedures. The new warning to Kimera Labs was about its exosome products and an amniotic product. Let’s compare these letters starting with the one to MiMedX. MiMedx warning letter
Weekly reads: MiMedX & Kimera Labs FDA warnings, NYT on Bryan Johnson, MUSE cell trial Read More »