New summary on liver failure and stem cells
The liver is the largest solid organ in the human body, and performs a critical function in keeping us alive: it removes waste from our bodies, detoxifies our blood, and helps in various other capacities to protect us from harm. Liver disease can severely compromise the liver’s ability to perform its everyday tasks, in part,…Read more
Personalized medicine is not only a goal, but part of the process, too
The concept of personalized medicine is an intuitive one: knowing what treatment to provide a patient based on their own individual case of a disease. Molecular techniques and various flavours of “-omics” provide high precision in determining the status and types of many diseases, as well as our susceptibility to them. One key application of…Read more
Can collaboration and commercialization co-exist?
by Tania Bubela Increasingly, commercialization is a key requirement for securing project funding and support for scientific research. The field of stem cell research is no exception. But does this emphasis on commercialization, which necessarily involves issues of ownership and secrecy, come at the expense of another largely-encouraged element of scientific research, namely academic collaboration?…Read more
Cartilage tissue engineering
In the body, cartilage has minimal potential to heal itself once damaged, as the tissue is not naturally exposed to a blood supply, and is then prevented from benefiting from the body’s immune response and wound healing capabilities. By using a tissue engineering approach, researchers hope to develop replacement cartilage that can be transplanted into…Read more
Induced publication of stem cells?
Earlier this month, the New Scientist shook up the stem cell community, putting forth the idea that publication speed, frequency, and journal quality might be skewed by where you’re from and who you know rather than the quality of your data. The article, entitled “Paper trail: Inside the stem cell wars” was inspired by an…Read more
The hot seat in San Francisco – the last word
And the last word (or words) goes to Fabio Rossi of the University of British Columbia. So ends a great conference!
The hot seat in San Francisco – part 4
Our couch is just too inviting… more comments on ISSCR 2010 from Mike Kallos of the University of Calgary and Feodor Price of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
The hot seat in San Francisco – part 3
More ISSCR meeting insights from James Ellis of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and Michael Rudnicki, Scientific Director of the Stem Cell Network.
