Privacy Policy
Signals Blog

Contributors

Categories

David Kent

Dr. David Kent is a Principal Investigator at the York Biomedical Research Institute (https://www.york.ac.uk/biology/research/infection-immunity/david-kent/). His laboratory's research focuses on the fundamental biology of blood stem cells and how changes in their regulation lead to cancers. David has a long history of public engagement and outreach including the creation of The Black Hole (https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/the-black-hole/) in 2009. He has been writing for Signals since 2010.

Posts by: David


Stem cells and their children – who inherits what?

Author: David Kent, 05/05/15

. One of the most fascinating questions for me, since I entered the field of stem cell biology, has been how a stem cell chooses what to do when it divides. I’ve looked down the microscope at single cells, which look like little air bubbles for the most part, watched them divide into two more […]

ISSCR takes a pre-emptive stand on ethical issues

Author: David Kent, 04/16/15

. Last month, Nature published a comment by Edward Lanphier and colleagues, which foreshadows the publication of a study in which scientists have used new genome editing tools to modify the DNA of human embryos. Author David Cyranoski weighed in, suggesting that scientists were divided on where the ethical boundaries for such a technology existed. […]

Such a long journey – Europe approves retinal cell therapy based on decades of good science

Author: David Kent, 03/24/15

> At one of my very first Canadian Stem Cell Network Annual General Meetings, when I was just a couple of years into my stem cell biology training, I remember sitting down just after lunch when a jovial Italian man sauntered up to the stage and apologized to the audience for the timing of his […]

No more monkeying around – promising results using stem cells to treat Parkinson’s disease

Author: David Kent, 03/18/15

Earlier this month, Harvard Medical School researchers published a brief report in Cell Stem Cell, which showed in non-human primates – in this case monkeys – that Parkinson’s disease symptoms could be alleviated using stem cell therapy. Using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells made from monkeys, they were able to make neurons outside the body […]

Cell Therapy 2.0 – warts and all

Author: David Kent, 03/16/15

> The last 15 years of stem cell research have been full of hope and promises – some of it delivered upon, most of it not quite there yet, and some of it miserably failed. I guess that is to be expected in a highly experimental area of medicine, but one of the most striking […]