There’s a lot going on in Florida with non-FDA approved stem cell offerings even just related to stem cells for vision problems alone, but while US Stem Cell has drawn the most attention related to patient allegations of severe vision loss in Florida after fat stem cell injections in eyes, another group I’ll loosely call the “SCOTS Trial” has also been injecting investigational stem cells (in this case from bone marrow) into patients’ eyes and some patients have made allegations of harm there too in …Read More
Macular degeneration stem cells
Ring the bell for a stem cell milestone. There’s been a whole lot of commotion about the NEJM article yesterday documenting the experiences of three women with macular degeneration who were blinded by non-FDA approved stem cell eye injections of fat stem cells at a business in Florida, but in the same issue of the journal there also was some encouraging stem cell news that came in the form of essentially a mirror image of the bad news paper. We can call it the “stem cell …Read More
Congratulations to Masayo Takahashi (高橋 政代), MD, PhD, the winner of the 2014 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. Dr. Takahashi received this award including the $2,000 prize for her exceptional achievements in stem cell research in 2014. She was selected as the winner from a stellar group of top 12 finalists this year. Takahashi leads a team doing high-risk, high reward research that is conducting the first induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC) clinical study in humans ever. I interviewed Takahashi at the beginning of this …Read More
I invited Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka to do an interview on the future of clinical translation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). He provides some intriguing new insights into the iPSC field and the broader stem cell arena. PK: The Takahashi Team’s active Clinical Study using iPSCs to make RPEs to treat Macular Degeneration has generated a great deal of excitement. Can you please share your perspectives on the importance of this work and the team involved? SY: This is the first study to apply …Read More