David Kent
David Kent holds a PhD in Genetics (UBC) and a BSc in Genetics and English (UWO) and is currently a CIHR postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK. He studies normal and malignant stem cell biology and currently sits on the executive for the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars. He also maintains his own blog for early career researchers at University Affairs, called the Black Hole (http://www.universityaffairs.ca/the-black-hole/).
Posts by: David
The importance of unequal division in stem cells
. Stem cells must strike a balance between different types of divisional outcomes in order to provide the correct numbers and types of cells for the lifetime of an organism. At each cell division, a stem cell either makes two replicates of itself to expand the population (a self-renewal division), makes two highly proliferating cells…Read more
Strategies to boost regenerative medicine: Growing an extra layer of skin
You might expect this article to be about creating skin grafts for burn victims or something of that ilk. Instead though, it concerns the complicated process of taking a scientific discovery in regenerative medicine and bringing that discovery through clinical trials or commercialization to help people. If you imagine the middle of an onion as…Read more
View from the floor 5: Pushing the boundaries with technology
The final day of the 2012 Till and McCulloch Meetings was packed with great science, but a common theme definitely emerged – technological advances are changing the way we think about and perform scientific research. Keynote speaker Helen Blau issued a warning about trying to mimic the stem cell niche outside the body, using an entertaining…Read more
Sifting through all that monkey business
Yesterday, a landmark paper emerged from Cell which reported two major findings to the scientific community: Primate embryonic stem cells cannot generate chimeras, and Aggregation and injection of multiple early-stage four-cell primate embryos (not embryonic stem cells) can form chimeras. Together these findings underscore a fundamental difference between rodent and primate embryonic stem cell lines…Read more
Pleasantly surprised at World Stem Cells congress
As a basic researcher in stem cell biology, one of my biggest fears is moving too quickly with cell therapies that involve primitive, still largely mysterious, cell populations. At the World Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine Congress meeting this week, I felt much better about the direction that regenerative medicine is headed. It has been…Read more