Hourglass, a blog carnival devoted to the biology of aging

Finally Chris over at Ouroboros came up with the idea and the quick implementation of Hourglass, a blog carnival devoted to the biology of aging/biogerontology.  For some reason I am not an explicit supporter of blog carnivals – many of my posts were chosen by carnival editors but I never hosted one -, but Hourglass…

The decellularized matrix hack: skipping many steps in tissue engineering

The concept of decellularizing complex organs in cadavers and reseeding the remaining matrix structure with differentiated, stem or progenitor cells, growing in a bioreactor and transplanting back to the organism could turn out to be a real technological shortcut in the field of tissue engineering. It is not a brand new story on the web,…

Bill Dye’s hope for an early regenerative medicine therapy! Please help.

Bill Dye has a serious muscle-tendon damage and is looking for an experimental regenerative medicine therapy (stem cells or tissue engineering or both) after 2 years and many surgical interventions. If any out of the expert readers of this blog can help or knows someone, who can help, please do comment or email Mr. Bill…

Off-the-shelf skin replacements are on their way…

UK scientists in artificial skin breakthrough: “A long-lasting artificial skin has been developed by British researchers. The Cambridge-based Intercytex Group Plc has announced that tests had produced promising results in healing wounds in early clinical trials…. ICX-SKN is created from a matrix produced by the same skin cells that are responsible for synthesising new tissue…

Industry and career focused stem cell report in the current Nature volume

Positively tuned (for the most part) report on stem cell science by Ricki Lewis: The hard cell Nature 447, 748-749 (June 2007) Excerpts, emphasis added by me: research in the field is thriving globally. At least 500 companies and collaborations have sprung up, 100 of them in the past year alone… A solid background for…

Are we really in the age of Regenerative Medicine 2.0? A comparison by Chris Mason

In the age of compelling technology analogies and nomenclatures it was unavoidable that somebody at last identifies enough differences in the history of industrial regenerative medicine to tell Regenerative Medicine 1.0 from 2.0. The man behind is Chris Mason, Group Leader of Stem Cell + Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing Unit, University College London and cofounder and…

Anthony Atala on regenerative medicine at New Yorker’s 2012 conference

Dr. Anthony Atala of pluripotent amniotic fluid-derived stem cell and tissue engineered bladder fame gave a presentation on Regenerative Medicine at the 2007 New Yorker Conference “2012: Stories from the Near Future”. Atala, the director of the Biopolis-like huge Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine with circa 150 people, talks amongst others on the differences…

Nature Reports Stem Cells Site is just about to launch

Wow, I first heard the online stem cell initiative of Nature called Nature Reports Stem Cells in November, 2006, when they hunted for editors but now it is real and I am excited about the initiative, although the concept is not yet clear. Hub of information for stem cell researchers, Stem Cell Primer and other…

Futures in biotech: podcast from the TWiT Netcast Network

Futures in biotech is the most advanced biotech podcast I’ve met till now, although it is far from being perfect. It is the podcast of the professional and alphageek TWiT Netcast Network. The hosts of the show are Marc Pelletier, who in his civil life is a Biomedical Research Scientist at Yale School of Medicine…

Add stem cells and eat the lab-grown meat!

In 2001 it was just a weird NASA trial, but in 2007 (pig) stem cell-grown meat substitutes minus hormones, antibiotics, and the threat of mad cow disease, plus omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins are within range. Researchers and engineers are fine-tuning the in vitro generation process of designer meats, to make it scalable and cheap.…

An argument supporting systemic regenerative medicine as a life extension tool

The incentive of this argument is a comment on a post over at fellow life extension blog Fight Aging! titled You Can’t Row the Whole Distance With Oars Made of Stem Cells. 1. Currently the biggest grants in life sciences are in regenerative medicine and stem cell biology. 2. The rate of progress is very…

Disruptor candidate stem cell therapies

Stem cell therapies are likely to be disruptive treatments for the following medical sectors according to the Stem Cell Market Analysis Fact Sheet: What is interesting in the following list: all the target tissues are of mesodermal origin. • Total knee implants: Stem cell therapies that repair worn articular or meniscus cartilage will delay and…

Stem Cell Therapy Market, US, 2005-2016: do you believe this?

This extrapolation is from the inforich and insider Stem Cell Market Analysis Fact Sheet of the 2nd Annual Stem Cell Summit, February 12-13 at San Diego, happening now. Other important facts concerning the Stem Cell Therapy Market in the U.S.:

2007 Edge Optimistic Question: systemic regenerative medicine

The Edge Annual Question — 2007 for science and technology driven people is: What are you optimistic about? Why? In my opinion it seems rational to be optimistic about things which are in my range or at least I can do something for them. So being a stem cell biologist I am really optimistic about…

London Regenerative Medicine Network Meeting, 13th Dec., King’s College

spacetime coordinates: 6.00 pm Wednesday 13th December 2006, King’s College London, Guy’s Hospital Campus at London Bridge, London SE1. REGISTRATION IS FREE. Link (funny, Apple-type site) AGENDA: 18.00 – Registration + networking over tea and coffee 18.30 – Welcome – Dr. Stephen Minger (KCL) – Co-organiser – LRMN 18.35 – “Retinal repair by transplantation of…

Blogterview with Ouroboros’ Chris Patil, II.: the technology of life extension

Here is Chris’ answer to question 4, for me it was the most important because of its critical edge. Question 2 was about moderate or maximum life extension commitment and the question below is not restricted to maximum LE and unlimited lifespan but includes modest trials too. 4. What is the most probable technological draft…

New lingo: Stells in RegMed and TEg

Here at the beautiful Costa Brava in the Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering Conference we hear the terms stem cells, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine so many times, so here I am pleased to offer some abbreviations, which are the results of a yesterday late night beer brainstorming: Stem cells: Stells, Tissue Engineering: TEg, Regenerative Medicine:…

Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering Conference: Blog and Wiki

As I’ve mentioned before from tomorrow I will be at Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain, at the Conference Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering, 28.10-2.11,2006 organized by the European Science Foundation. The official website of the conference is: http://www.esf.org/conferences/lc06213 In the IT sector it is more and more natural that a Conference has a wiki and…

3 free articles in the November Issue of Tissue Engineering

Thanks to a new rapid publication policy you can download now 3 excellent articles from the November Issue of Tissue Engineering published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.: Ex Vivo Engineering of Living Tissues with Adult Stem Cells by Bonnie Barrilleaux, B.S., Donald G. Phinney, Darwin J. Prockop, and Kim O Connor. This is maybe the…

Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering: Conference in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain

I have a chance to participate with a poster at an upcoming conference on Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering – Isolation, Culture, Characterisation and Applications in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain, 28.10-02.11. Here are some lectures from the programme, which I’d like to visit by all means (my comments in italics): 29.10. Sunday 11.45-12.35 J.…

Tissue Genesis’s alliance with Tulip BioMed: adipose stem cells in cosmetics

Patent trends in recent tissue engineering

In Nature Biotechnology 24, 1095 (2006) there is an interesting table made by Thomson Scientific Search Service about recent patent applications in tissue engineering. From that we can gain a picture of what is hot in current tissue engineering: popular organs, tissues, regeneration targets are skin, bone, cartilage, main problem is how to make 3D…