Jalees Rehman | The Next Regeneration

Jalees Rehman: ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I love to read books. When I am not reading books, I work as a stem cell biologist and as a cardiologist. I am currently an Associate Professor of Medicine and Pharmcology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). I originally trained as a chronobiologist, investigating the circadian rhythms of bioluminescent algae at the University of Munich. After completing medical school in Munich, I moved from Germany to the United States. My research career meandered quite a bit, and involved cell adhesion molecules of leukocytes, the growth of blood vessels, cocaine-induced heart attacks, mitochondria in cancer cells, endocannabinoids, pulmonary hypertension and, finally, stem cells. I found nearly every aspect of biology quite exciting, and this is perhaps why I have chosen stem cell biology as my research focus. It allows me to combine and integrate so many aspects of biology. My laboratory currently studies the biology of embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells, as well as their therapeutic potential. My personal blog is entitled Fragments of Truth. I can be contacted at jalees.rehman[at]gmail.com.

Jalees Rehman: All Posts

“Citizen Science”: Scientific Consensus On Global Warming

Posted 16 May 2013 by Jalees Rehman

I came across an interesting study about the consensus in the scientific community on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), i.e. the idea that human activity is very likely causing most of global warming. What makes this study so interesting is the fact that it involved a “citizen science” approach. Volunteers who contributed to the Skeptical Science website were asked to grade the abstracts of 11,944 scientific papers on global climate change that were published in the years 1991-2011. These volunteers assessed... Read more

Posted in bias, citizen science, scientific method |

3 Comments | Permalink

Cellular Alchemy: Converting Fibroblasts Into Heart Cells

Posted 11 May 2013 by Jalees Rehman

Medieval alchemists devoted their lives to the pursuit of the infamous Philosopher's Stone, an elusive substance that was thought to convert base metals into valuable gold. Needless to say, nobody ever discovered the Philosopher’s Stone. Well, perhaps some alchemist did get lucky but was wise enough to keep the discovery secret. Instead of publishing the discovery and receiving the Nobel Prize for Alchemy, the lucky alchemist probably just walked around in junkyards, surreptitiously collected scraps of metal and brought them... Read more

Posted in cardiovascular, differentiation, gene expression, genome, heart disease, induced Pluripotent stem cells, iPSCs, molecular biology, regeneration, regenerative medicine, reprogramming, Stem Cells, wound healing |

7 Comments | Permalink

Transparency Is Not A One-Way Mirror

Posted 24 April 2013 by Jalees Rehman

An editorial in the journal Nature published on April 24, 2013 announces an important new step in the scientific peer review process for manuscripts that are being submitted to Nature and other Nature research journals. Authors of scientific manuscripts will now be required to fill out a checklist before they can submit their work to the journal. The title of the editorial, "Announcement: Reducing our irreproducibility", reveals the goal of this new step - addressing the problem of irreproducibility that... Read more

Posted in peer review, research, science communication, science journalism, science writing, scientific method, scientific methodology |

0 Comments | Permalink

Bone Marrow Cell Infusions Do NOT Improve Cardiac Function After Heart Attack

Posted 18 April 2013 by Jalees Rehman

For over a decade, cardiologists have been conducting trials in patients using cells extracted from the bone marrow and infusing them into the blood vessels of the heart in patients who have suffered a heart attack. This type of a procedure is not without risks. It involves multiple invasive procedures in patients who are already quite ill, because they are experiencing a major heart attack: 1) Patients with a major heart attack (also referred to as ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction or... Read more

Posted in adult stem cells, cardiovascular, heart disease, regeneration, regenerative medicine, research, Stem Cells |

0 Comments | Permalink

Curating Science

Posted 4 March 2013 by Jalees Rehman

Here is an excerpt from an essay that I recently wrote for 3quarksdaily and I wanted to post it here because I think that the discussion also applies to "curating" scientific information. Curating Creativity "For every rational line or forthright statement there are leagues of senseless cacophony, verbal nonsense, and incoherency." Jorge Luis Borges, "Library of Babel" The British-Australian art curator Nick Waterlow was tragically murdered on November 9, 2009 in the Sydney suburb of Randwick. His untimely death shocked the Australian... Read more

Posted in creativity, science communication |

1 Comments | Permalink

The Open Access Debate Continues

Posted 27 February 2013 by Jalees Rehman

The New England Journal of Medicine has just published four articles that comment on the issue of "open access". I will list these four articles and briefly comment on the two papers which are critical of open access publishing. 1. The Downside of Open-Access Publishing by Charlotte Haug This article discusses potential problems associated with open access publishing but also conflates the issue of open access with the issue of inadequate peer review, as can be seen in this excerpt: Of course, the... Read more

Posted in open access, peer review |

6 Comments | Permalink

Are Scientists Divided Over Divining Rods?

Posted 25 February 2013 by Jalees Rehman

When I read a statement which starts with "Scientists are divided over......", I expect to learn about a scientific controversy involving scientists who offer distinct interpretations or analyses of published scientific data. This is not uncommon in stem cell biology. For example, scientists disagree about the differentiation capacity of adult bone marrow stem cells. Some scientists are convinced that these adult stem cells have a broad differentiation capacity and that a significant proportion can turn into heart cells or brain... Read more

Posted in adult stem cells, science communication, science journalism, science writing, scientific method, Stem Cells |

8 Comments | Permalink

The ENCODE Controversy And Professionalism In Science

Posted 24 February 2013 by Jalees Rehman

The ENCODE (Encyclopedia Of DNA Elements) project received quite a bit of attention when its results were publicized last year. This project involved a very large consortium of scientists with the goal to identify all the functional elements in the human genome. In September 2012, 30 papers were published in a coordinated release and their extraordinary claim was that roughly 80% of the human genome was "functional". This was in direct contrast to the prevailing view among molecular biologists that the... Read more

Posted in molecular biology, professionalism, science journalism, science writing, scientific method, scientific methodology |

4 Comments | Permalink

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences: Hopefully Not Just A Nobel Prize in Medicine 2.0

Posted 20 February 2013 by Jalees Rehman

The recent announcement of the “Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences” and its inaugural 11 recipients is causing quite a bit of buzz in the research community. The Silicon Valley celebrities Art Levinson, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Yuri Milner have established the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation, which intends to award five annual prizes in the amount of $3 million each to honor “extraordinary achievements of the outstanding minds in the field of life... Read more

Posted in academia, awards, Nobel, prizes |

2 Comments | Permalink

Stemming the Flow: Using Stem Cells To Treat Urinary Bladder Dysfunction

Posted 19 February 2013 by Jalees Rehman

Neurogenic bladder is a disorder which occurs in spinal cord diseases such as spina bifida and is characterized by an inability of the nervous system to properly control the urinary bladder and the muscle tissue contained in the bladder wall. This can lead to spasms and a build-up of pressure in the bladder, often resulting in urinary incontinence. Children with spina bifida and neurogenic bladder often feel urges to urinate after drinking comparatively small amounts of liquid and they can... Read more

Posted in adult stem cells, induced Pluripotent stem cells, iPSCs, mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs, patients, regenerative medicine, Stem Cells |

2 Comments | Permalink