We've got a new niche!

The SCN Blog has a new name and a new home: http://www.signalsblog.ca

After nearly four years and 207 blog posts, we finally outgrew our dish, so to speak. Late last year, we began planning with the newly-formed Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, who indicated an interest to begin blogging in the sphere. (Perhaps you'll recall our name contest?) Why have two blogs competing when one can do the job? The result is Signals Blog (the new name came from an SCN staff member who sadly was not eligible for a prize), which will continue to bring the same level of insight, commentary and research news you've found on the SCN Blog, but will add new perspectives and news on biomaterials, regenerative medicine and commercialization.

We think it's a great partnership that will provide a more comprehensive view of the world of stem cells and regenerative medicine. 

To ease the transition for readers, all archived posts from the SCN Blog have been moved to their new home and RSS feeds will be updated to the new address. Comments will be closed on this site, but we'll keep a copy of the archives here for the short term. 

This is our final post on this site: please update your links and check out our new niche at www.signalsblog.ca!

News roundup: open access, new funding for personalized medicine and spinal cord injury update

by Lisa Willemse

Some updates and news items of note:

Call for boycott of subscriber-based journals gains momentum

The ongoing friction between proponents of open access and the academic publishers has jumped into the spotlight once again with calls from a number of academics, most notably from prominent British mathmetician Tim Gowers, who publicly announced his decision to stop submitting and reviewing for Elsevier. His objections are worth reading. Within days of his comments, a web site was created that allows other researchers to pledge their support for open access and against the practices of Elsevier and other academic publishers. At time of writing, there were over 2400 signatures. Of course, this is not the first time such calls for open access have surfaced from within the research community, the last big push resulted in the formation of the Public Library of Science in 2000. 

Nor are the sentiments limited to the mathematics field -- within stem cells, Jim Till has long been a proponent of open access and keeps a close eye on relevant news on his blog and Alexey Bersenev has several posts on the topic on his blog, Stem Cell Assays. His summary of the current events includes a good list of the reasons for open access as well as links to other sources for the interested reader.

Shift to personalized medicine finds federal support

Yesterday, the Canadian Minister of Health, Leona Aglukkaq, announced a new initiative worth upwards of $135 million ($67.5M from federal sources, to be matched by partner funds) with a focus on personalized medicine -- the use of genetics, biomarkers and environmental conditions to tailor disease treatments to individual patients. The announcement was essentially a call for applications and while specific projects are not yet known, they will have a strong genomics component and be readily translatable into a clinical setting. More reason for those working in translational research to be happy, and yet another sign that basic research is in trouble.  

A good chunk of the funds is coming from Genome Canada, with other support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium. Specifically, the contribution from the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium will support the highest ranking cancer stem cell research project. All projects are expected to last four years.  

Update to spinal cord injury summary

Finally, a note that the entry on spinal cord injury within the Stem Cell Network's patient section has been updated and expanded. We are working to update all the entries in this section and to add new ones in the coming year. 

Trading on hope: A look at what motivates stem cell tourists and what happens when it goes wrong

In recent years, the research community has been quite outspoken in its condemnation of rogue stem cell clinics operating in many countries across the globe. Indeed, through announcements made by health and related ministries in China, India and the US, it appears the message is beginning to be heard.  

On the heels of a recent 60 Minutes newscast in the US, a similar exposé aired on January 14 here in Canada. In it, Stem Cell Network Scientific Director Michael Rudnicki spoke with Global TV’s Carolyn Jarvis, condemning stem cell tourism and the agencies that offer them as “despicable” (view the entire Global TV 16x9 segment here). His interview was just a small part of the broadcast, in which the news team looked at the unproven and unapproved therapies offered by a clinic operating in Mexico and a Canadian-based travel operator that offers packages to help people access the services.

Along with Rudnicki, the program profiles several patients, one of whom was successfully treated in an FDA-approved clinical trial for MS, another who was unsuccessfully treated in a Mexican clinic, and a set of parents raising funds to seek treatment in China for their five-year-old son. Each of the struggle to balance the pain of dealing with their ailments, the hope that stem cells could help them, and the risks involved in these experimental therapies.

Exercising caution over unproven therapies: India holds public consultation meetings to update stem cell guidelines

by David Kent

Last fall, I wrote on the Eurostemcell documentary film entitled Stem Cell Revolutions: A Vision of the Future, which featured some experimental stem cell treatments in India, and since that time, I have tried to keep my finger on the pulse of what has been happening in India with respect to stem cell therapy.

Last month a pair of interesting statements were made in the India Times:

“As of today there is no approved indication for stem cell therapy as part of routine medical practice, other than bone marrow transplantation.”

This was followed by:

Whose life is it anyway? Building patient needs and goals into stem cell clinical trials

by Lisa Willemse

In a traditional view of medical research, advances tend to be measured against the overarching goal of cure. Noble as this might be, research is rarely such a black and white affair -- if we have learned anything, it’s that there are innumerable shades of grey.

Even the goal itself can be questioned, especially when achieving it could be 50 years into the future.

Unconstrained thinking: the link between computer chips and clinical trials

by Drew Lyall

The World Stem Cell Summit taking place this week in Pasadena, California, occupies a unique place in the stem cell calendar. The summit brings together patient advocates, policy makers, industry and scientists from around the world to take stock of progress in the field; to discuss common political, regulatory, financial and scientific barriers to therapies reaching the clinic; and, to actively collaborate on moving efforts forward.

One of the joys of this meeting is that is usually includes a thought-provoking keynote talk from an icon outside of the field, but with a deep personal interest in its success. This year's keynote came from Andy Grove, who founded Intel Corporation in 1968, and in various roles including Chief Scientist, President & CEO and Chairman grew the company to the multi-billion dollar behemoth it is today, ranking right along side alongside Microsoft, Google, Apple and now Facebook as one of the giants of the Information Age.

In 1999, Grove was also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

The skinny on stem cells and weight loss

This content has moved!

Please read it on its new home, Signals Blog: The skinny on stem cells and weight loss

Should the fight against bogus stem cell therapies be turned back to the lab?

by Lisa Willemse

This morning's news scan turned up yet another sad tale about the dangers of unproven stem cell therapies and a warning to consumers to once again be skeptical of the claims made by the many unscrupulous clinics operating abroad. For the most part, the article echoes repeated calls made on this blog and numerous other sources, including the ISSCR's Closer Look at Stem Cells, to draw more attention to the issue of "stem cell tourism" in hopes of reducing the numbers of patients paying for such potentially harmful treatments.

Interestingly, I also had an email in my inbox today that contained a recently published paper in EMBO reports that addresses the same topic, albeit in a very different fashion. The authors of the paper, Zubin Master and David Resnik, argue that stem cell scientists could do more to curb stem cell tourism in the face of the questionable success gained from such public education initiatives such as Closer Look at Stem Cells. In fact, the authors suggest that in the case of stem cell tourism, a successful strategy requires the active involvement of scientists.

Lasting memories of a pancreatic beta cell

This content has moved!

Please read this article on its new home, Signals Blog: Lasting memories of a pancreatic beta cell

A (new) history of stem cell research

A short time ago, Ed Yong blogged about a timeline he created on reprogrammed stem cells, which we’ve mentioned before in our own blog. It presented a good overview of the major papers that have defined the progress in this specific area and we found it interesting not just because of the method of delivery (a Dipity interface) or the fact that it put stem cells into the spotlight but because it just so happened that we had been working on an updated history of stem cell research.

Those of you who have perused our site will have noticed that we have our own stem cell timeline. The first version of this timeline had been there for at least five years, but in early 2010 it came under some criticism, and rightly so. It was both sparse and biased toward Canadian discoveries (in our defense, the timeline had originally been created to highlight Canadian achievements). But the criticism made us take a second look at it and we learned that it was being referred to and used by a great number of students, not all of whom were in Canada. As a science entity, we needed to do better and so began a much more conscientious effort to really highlight the key discoveries that have defined the field.

Our recently completed timeline features more than 40 major findings, from 1860 to the present day, and highlights the work of researchers from around the world. It’s been reviewed by scientists in the field to be the most comprehensive resource of its type that we know of.

 Let us know what you think!