ethics

Some Highlights of the Live Chat: “Are We Doing Science the Right Way?”

Posted 8 February 2013 by Jalees Rehman

On February 7, 2013, ScienceNOW organized a Live Chat with the microbiologists Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall that was moderated by the Science staff writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel and discussed a very broad range of topics related to how we currently conduct science. For those who could not participate in the Live Chat, I will summarize some key comments made by Fang and Casadevall, Couzin-Frankel or other commenters. I have grouped the comments into key themes and also added some... Read more

Posted in chat, fraud, research, science communication, science funding, science journalism, science writing, scientific method |

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Recent Study Raises Questions About Using Adult Stem Cells for Chronic Heart Disease

Posted 15 November 2012 by Jalees Rehman

A recent clinical study (POSEIDON Randomized Trial) investigated the effects of transplanting bone marrow derived adult stem cells into patients with known heart disease. The results were presented at the 2012 American Heart Association (AHA) meeting in Los Angeles and also published in the article "Comparison of Allogeneic vs Autologous Bone Marrow–Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells Delivered by Transendocardial Injection in Patients With Ischemic Cardiomyopathy: The POSEIDON Randomized Trial". The article by Dr. Joshua Hare and colleagues appeared in the online... Read more

Posted in adult stem cells, clinical trials, Embryonic stem cells, Ethics, heart disease, induced Pluripotent stem cells, scientific method, scientific methodology, Stem Cells |

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Science Journalism and the Inner Swine Dog

Posted 5 November 2012 by Jalees Rehman

A search of the PubMed database, which indexes scholarly biomedical articles, reveals that 997,508 articles were published in the year 2011, which amounts to roughly 2,700 articles per day. Since the database does not include all published biomedical research articles, the actual number of published biomedical papers is probably even higher. Most biomedical researchers work in defined research areas, so perhaps only 1% of the published articles may be relevant for their research. As an example, the major focus of... Read more

Posted in Ethics, fraud, journalism, professionalism, science journalism, scientific method, scientific methodology, Stem Cells |

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The Importance of Being Embryonic

Posted 25 October 2012 by Jalees Rehman

There are three broad categories of human stem cells: 1) adult stem cells, 2) embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and 3) induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Adult stem cells can be found in selected adult tissues, such as the hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow which give rise to a variety of blood cells on a daily basis in an adult. Such adult stem cells are quite rare and, when compared to ESCs, somewhat limited in the type of cells... Read more

Posted in adult stem cells, Embryonic stem cells, Ethics, induced Pluripotent stem cells, Stem Cells |

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