Let’s start with a couple of new pieces on in vivo reprogramming. The idea here is to do something like making iPS cells but doing it inside organisms and not quite pushing cells all the way back to pluripotency. Just younger, healthier cells. Why do that? The goal is to achieve a kind of anti-aging […]
Weekly reads: reprogramming aging, astrocytes, cartilage, ChatGPT Read More »
Patients regularly reach out and ask me about something called HSCT. “What is HSCT?” and is it proven as a therapy? Often the patients asking about this have multiple sclerosis (MS) or some other autoimmune disease. I’m not a physician so I can’t give medical advice, but as a stem cell biologist here at UC
What is HSCT & its possible roles in MS treatment? Read More »
Does aging do something to time so it seems like as you get older that time goes by faster? Remember as a little kid when summer seemed to last forever and car rides could be agonizingly long? I’ve heard two theories on this. One is that the brain’s baseline of activity slows down with aging
Weekly stem cell reads: aging & cells, iPS cell mutations, gut, more Read More »
Happy New Year and get ready for another 364 more days of stem cell excitement and craziness in 2022. In the next day or two I’ll post my predictions for this new year. Recommended reads EO Wilson obit by Carl Zimmer in NYT. Who’s the next EO Wilson or someone like him with such big impact these
Weekly stem cell reads: COVID kidney, FDA letter, H3.3, EO Wilson Read More »
Americans eat tens of millions of turkeys each year on Thanksgiving, but what the heck is a turkey really? It’s a heckuva of strange bird, isn’t it? They are so big my 110-lb dog Mica won’t go after them. Also, this year during the pandemic we may be eating a lot less turkey collectively so
Fun, geeky turkey facts for the Thanksgiving dinner table Read More »
What do a Panama stem cell clinic and the Duke Autism Center have in common? More than I might have imagined. It’s a remarkable story that needs telling. Duke Autism Center There is a puzzle when it comes to the controversial idea of using cord blood for autism. Why? Because two of the strongest proponents
Duke Autism Center has Panama clinic to thank for $10s millions? Read More »
Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is counterintuitive In the weeks and months following a transplant, a major concern is the recipient’s immune system rejecting the “foreign” biological material. But in GVHD, the opposite happens: transplanted tissue unleashes a horde of T cells that spark a cascade of inflammation, within 100 days. Typically, GVHD follows a bone marrow
Mesoblast MSCs Quell Peds GvHD; On Road to FDA Approval? Read More »
Today’s post is a review and fact check of stem cell supplements. What I found now in 2024 on stem cell pills and related supplements is concerning. As a stem cell biologist, I see risks here of both wasting one’s money and doing some harm. In certain cases, stem cell supplements are actually unapproved drugs
Fact-checking stem cell supplements in 2024 Read More »
The perinatal stem cell clinic supplier Liveyon has had many issues recently including an FDA inspection that in my view didn’t go well and which I’ll return to in a minute. First, some background on the company and this troubled industry. E. coli and other pathogens ended up in some of the Liveyon product somehow
Dissecting Liveyon FDA inspection report & troubled perinatal stem cell industry Read More »
There are many potential causes of erectile dysfunction or ED and a host of ideas about how to treat it. Some approaches to erectile dysfunction are evidence-based and even have been rigorously proven such as the drugs Viagra and Cialis, which increase blood flow to the penis. Depending on the causes of the dysfunction, these
Sexual Medicine Society on Unproven Regenerative Therapies for Erectile Dysfunction Read More »