What were the top posts here on The Niche for the past year? I’ve listed some of them below along with some posts from 2015 that remain highly read. Some top 2016 posts 20 Nominees for Stem Cell Person of the Year 2016 Award REGROW Act is Attack on Science-Based Stem Cell Trial Oversight Will new gene editing tech NgAgo challenge CRISPR? FDA Warning Letter to Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center Clinics Across US Public stem cell skirmish erupts between Hanna & Jaenisch Controversy over …Read More
Jacob Hanna
Professor Rudolf Jaenisch of MIT and his former postdoc/now assistant professor at The Weizmann Jacob Hanna have gotten into a very public, stem cell skirmish over conflicting papers. Hanna raised concerns over a Jaenisch lab paper and things have escalated from there. This mess is playing out before our eyes on PubMed (there was a comment from Hanna on the Jaenisch lab paper, but now removed), PubPeer (scroll down near the bottom of the comments on that page for several items), on the website of the journal Cell …Read More
Here are some recommended weekend science reads and links including stem cells, CRISPR, and clones. Woo-Suk Hwang & his dog clones…all started with Snuppy (pictured): Disgraced Scientist Clones Dogs, And Critics Question His Intent.Now in 2020, I wonder where Hwang is and what is he doing? I’m going to look into it. Human gene editing summit under the microscope of Hurlbut, et al. CRISPR Democracy: Gene Editing and the Need for Inclusive Deliberation New CRISPR partner protein Slices through Genomes, Patent Problems For anyone who grows …Read More
The annual ISSCR meeting has started in Stockholm. This is always a great annual meeting both for the science and for connecting with people including new friends and colleagues as well as old friends. Another element to the meeting is the insider conversations in the halls, restaurants, and bars that tell a behind the scenes story of the stem cell field. Below are my top 10 things to look for that might be discussed over a beer or coffee this year. Also be sure to check …Read More
Here are some papers and news for weekend reads. What are you reading this weekend? What are your go-to stem cell journals? Hostile Takeover: Glioma Stem Cells Recruit TAMs to Support Tumor Progression by Yu Shi, Yi-fang Ping, Xia Zhang, Xiu-wu Bian in Cell Stem Cell. YAP1 Regulates OCT4 Activity and SOX2 Expression to Facilitate self-renewal and Vascular Mimicry of Stem-like Cells by Namrata Bora-Singhal, Jonathan Nguyen, Courtney Schaal, Deepak Perumal, Sandeep Singh, Domenico Coppola, Srikumar Chellappan in Stem Cells Jacob Hannah’s team posts on bioRxiv in support …Read More
A question that has come up with advances in stem cell technology: could same-sex couples have their own biological children? Since Shinya Yamanaka reprogrammed first mouse and then human ordinary cells into powerful pluripotent stem cells, termed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, back in 2006-2007 many new research avenues have opened up. The impossible suddenly seemed a lot more possible with the report of iPS cells (aka IPSC). People started asking many more creative questions, The biomedical sciences now had more potential to make the …Read More
What’s the deal with the tension between José Silva and Jacob Hanna over pluripotency? Researchers probing how to reprogram cells into powerful stem cells (induced pluripotent stem cells or IPSCs) and what the molecular mechanisms are behind this process have become entangled in a conflict. Of course over the years scientists including stem cell scientists have had their share of disagreements and debates in the past including heated ones, but this reprogramming clash has taken it up a notch beyond past ones and has some unique elements …Read More
TGIF: I’m working on an R01, but I still try to find time to read a wide variety of papers. Below are the science pubs that I’m hoping to get to this weekend. Less Myc, longer “health span” Cell paper from Sedivy Lab. ESC Histone H3.3 nucleosomal functions Epigenetics & Chromatin paper from Keji Zhao Lab. Human PGC specification Cell paper from Jacob Hanna Lab. SETDB1 & hnRNP K tango to silence ERVs in ESCs PLOS Genetics paper from Matt Lorincz Lab. Novel antibiotic isolated from …Read More
A heated series of discussions on stem cell publications is ongoing on the Post-publication review (post-pub) website, PubPeer, which has been called by a PubPeer user “The stem cell shoot out“. This “shoot out” goes well beyond the one page on PubPeer. It is notable to see that the authors of the papers that are the focus of these interactions, often prominent stem cell scientists, are now sometimes participating in the discussions by leaving comments themselves on PubPeer. For instance, Austin smith has commented on PubPeer regarding ground …Read More
I recently did a poll asking readers of my blog to vote on the iPS cell paper of the year for 2013. The vote kind of seesawed at the beginning, but in the end with 100 votes cast the paper by the Hannah lab on near-perfect iPS cell production won out (see votes at left). In second place was the Deng lab paper on all-chemical reprogramming. I suspect that just a couple years ago, this paper would have won by a landslide, which I …Read More