NEWS and OPINIONS

FDA blocks new clinical trials that ship cells from US to China
By Nick Paul Taylor - Fierce Biotech - The FDA has stopped new clinical trials that export American citizens’ living cells from the U.S. to “China and other hostile countries for genetic engineering and subsequent infusion” back into American patients. Officials said...

Japan is helping lead the way in regenerative medicine
By Alex (Guangyao) Xu - The Japan Times - In a quiet operating room on Kyoto University’s medical campus, a team of researchers slipped a syringe of lab-grown neurons into the brain of a living person. Leading the trial was Jun Takahashi, a neurosurgeon with the kind...

Organ-Chips May Help Unlock the Mystery of ALS
By Christina Elston - Cedars Sinai - Cedars-Sinai’s Lifelike Laboratory Model Is a New Way for Investigators to Study Motor Neurons That Die in Patients With the Neurodegenerative Illness Using stem cells from patients with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis),...

3 progressive MS patients see lower disability with CAR T-cell therapy
by Marisa Wexler - Multiple Sclerosis News Today - A CAR T-cell therapy from Iaso Biotherapeutics was tolerated well and led to marked improvements in disability for three people with progressive forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), according to early data from a Phase 1...

Germany calls for medicine to treat aging, not just disease
By Eleanor Garth - Longevity.Technology - Leopoldina issues policy paper urging integration of geroscience into national healthcare and research infrastructure. Germany’s National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina has published a detailed policy paper calling for a...

People With Severe Diabetes Are Cured in Small Trial of New Drug
By Gina Kolata - New York Times - Most in a small group of patients receiving a stem cell-based infusion no longer needed insulin, but the drug may not suit those with more manageable type 1 diabetes. A single infusion of a stem cell-based treatment may have cured 10...

Designing blood vessels for 3D printed hearts
By Stanford Report - Stanford researchers have developed a faster, more precise way to model and print vascular systems, solving a critical challenge in fabricating transplantable organs from patients’ own cells. There are more than 100,000 people on organ transplant...

New Immunotherapy Reverses Cholesterol Damage in Heart Cells
By Sant Pau Research Institute - SciTechDaily - A new antibody treatment prevents cholesterol buildup in heart mitochondria and restores energy production, offering hope for future heart disease therapies. An international team of researchers has uncovered how...

FDA Greenlights Twice-A-Year HIV Prevention Drug
By Antonio Pequeño IV - Forbes - Yeztugo, a twice-a-year antiviral shot to prevent HIV, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday, marking a major advance in battling AIDS. Key Facts The drug (which has the generic name lenacapavir) will become...

Stem cell platform aims to recreate brain’s immune system using lab-grown human microglia cells
by Harvard University - Microglia are a specialized type of immune cell that accounts for about 10% of all cells within the brain and spinal cord. They function by eliminating infectious microbes, dead cells, and aggregated proteins, as well as soluble antigens that...

Research Spotlight: Preventing stalling to improve CAR-T cells’ efficacy against tumors
By Mass General Brigham - Marcela Maus, MD, PhD, director of the Cellular Immunotherapy Program and the Paula J. O'Keeffe Endowed Chair of the Mass General Cancer Center, is senior author and Stefanie Bailey, PhD, Hana Takei, and Giulia Escobar, PhD of the Krantz...

Son’s diabetes diagnosis sent scientist on quest for cure
by Kermit Pattison - The Harvard Gazette - Decades later, Doug Melton and team are testing treatment that could make insulin shots obsolete. Doug Melton’s life irrevocably changed the day his child was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. But unlike most other...