Every year around this time I put my “best of” the year in stem cells including awards such as my Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. For example here are the 2011 awards.
This year I’m also trying with difficult to decide on what was the craziest thing for stem cells that happened in 2012. It was a freakin’ crazy year so I have 4 options and am curious of your thoughts so take the poll below if you want.
Here are my 5 candidates for oddest event for stem cells of 2012.
1. Moriguchi’s fake iPS transplant story and the fact it was presented at NYSCF meeting as a poster and the story was run by the largest circulation newspaper in the world front page above the fold.
2. The stem cell super model case. Life of luxury on the backs of patients injected with all sorts of crap, one of the two parties dies mysteriously, dramatic court testimony, etc.
3. The lawsuit filed against the Nobel Committee by the scientist for not giving him the Nobel Prize.
4. The FDA issuing a warning letter against L’Oreal/Lancome (a very serious regulatory step) for stem cell facial cream (involving plant stem cell extracts), while many unlicensed clinics just in the U.S. alone are transplanting stem cells into patients including allogeneic and amplified autologous stem cells…without any FDA action whatsoever taken against them to my knowledge.
5. The notion that there are stem cells in Pepsi becomes established as a U.S. urban legend/myth.
All very strange in my opinion, but which is the strangest?