The Niche

George Daley, a stem cell scientist at Children’s Hospital in Boston explains on YouTube why it was so hard to tell whether Hwang’s cloned stem cells were real. You can find MIT’s Rudy Jaenisch there too, but it’s harder.

I scanned through 10 pages of stem cell video listings and found plenty of politicians, a stem-cell folk song that seems to confuse pluripotency with reincarnation, and a tale of stem-cell monsters that fortunately acknowledged itself as science fiction. I found only one posting by a scientific institution whose name I recognized : Children's Hospital.

Continue reading "Stem cell scientists are on YouTube, but they're hiding " »

Posted by Monya Baker on August 22, 2007
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After struggling to find someone to fill the seat vacated by Zach Hall, CIRM seems to be taking a bit of a breather. They've found someone to take the job as president for six months, at $50,000 a month. Richard Murphy as been a member of CIRM's board, and the head of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He'll take the reins of the institution set to disburse $3 billion over ten years on September 1.
You can read the CIRM press release here.
I have two initial thoughts. One is that as a former board member of CIRM, Murphy probably has a good idea of how long he can last in that position (juggling peole with different aptitudes and agendas and trying to enthuse without overpromising), which apparently is six months. The other concern is the fact that he will recuse himself from decisions involving San Diego-based institutions, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. I understand the concerns about conflict of interest, but how can the president stay out of decisions for a place so powerful and important in stem cell research, and one he knows well too.. And surely Murphy has friends, colleagues, contacts everywhere and not just the place he's called home? There has to be a more effective way keep corruption amd undue influences out of the public sphere.

Posted by Monya Baker on August 09, 2007
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It seems my inbox has been filled with news stories of the announcement that the biggest stem-cell fraudster actually did achieve an historic first, but not the one he claimed. Here's the announcement that we made in June when the news was announced at a conference in Australia. http://http://blogs.nature.com/reports/theniche/2007/06/hwangs_clone_was_really_a_part_2.html

And for those of you whose inboxes aren't flooded, here's a news story that draws on newly published results.

Posted by Monya Baker on August 06, 2007
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