Stem cells are always in the news so what’s up in the last week or two? CIRM News The dialogue over CIRM’s future is picking up a bit of steam. The San Francisco Chronicle did an in-depth piece on CIRM some weeks back and then opined that they didn’t feel supportive of another round of funding. I disagree. I think CIRM is a good future investment for California, but as a past CIRM grantee and stem cell advocate my opinion is probably not a …Read More
mesenchymal stromal cells
Ain’t nothing like the real thing…right? No, by the ‘real thing’ I’m not talking about Coke versus Pepsi or Coke versus Diet Coke, but rather stem cells. (On a side note there’s still some people who apparently believe the stem cell myth that there are stem cells in Pepsi). I get a regular stream of emails from patients and sometimes phone calls asking questions about stem cells and especially stem cell treatments, but at times I’m not sure the treatment in question really involves …Read More
Every year I do a list of top predictions for the coming year for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field. For example, you can see past top 10 predictions lists for 2013 and 2014. What’s in store for 2015 from the stem cell crystal ball? There is so much going on that for this coming year I’m making 20 predictions, some upbeat and other more discouraging. They are listed below in no particular order. FDA ‘breakthrough’ on stem cells. FDA grants an investigational stem …Read More
The mesenchymal stem cell (MSC). So important and yet so misunderstood? People pronounce it in different ways. People isolate the MSCs in different ways. Each person’s MSCs are very different. Each lab’s MSCs are different. (see picture above of MSCs showing fibroblastic morphology; source is Wikipedia) Someone once told me that MSCs are the same as hematopoietic stem cells. ‘What the heck?’, was my response. Some people are not sure that MSCs (at least as they are typically thought of) even exist. I remember distinctly …Read More