Insider Trends on Stem Cells to Look Out for at ISSCR 2015 Stockholm

isscr meeting
isscr 2015 meeting

The annual ISSCR meeting has started in Stockholm.

This is always a great annual meeting both for the science and for connecting with people including new friends and colleagues as well as old friends.

Another element to the meeting is the insider conversations in the halls, restaurants, and bars that tell a behind the scenes story of the stem cell field.

Below are my top 10 things to look for that might be discussed over a beer or coffee this year. Also be sure to check out the wonderful guide to Stockholm from Heather Main and if you are there at the meeting enter our stem cell contests to win up to $100.

  • Clinics make an appearance? It’s a long shot, but I keep wondering if some of the stem cell clinic folks will show up at ISSCR some day to try to legitimize themselves even if they don’t speak, etc. Maybe they’ll sneak in with some posters or even just attend to make some connections. Unlikely, but if it happened could prove very interesting.
  • I’ll be curious if the Hanna-Silva feud of a sorts continues persist over ground state pluripotency, MBD3 and NuRD.
  • Does anyone still believe in VSELs?  A scandal is still smoldering there.
  • Anybody know what happened to Vacanti and the assumed to exist Brigham & Women’s/Harvard investigation over STAP cells? Last year in Vancouver at ISSCR STAP cells were one of the hottest topics.
  • Will Mitalipov continue to assert that NT-hESC are better than IPSC after the more recent paper (on which he was an author seemed to show otherwise)? More broadly will the SCNT/human therapeutic cloning folks continue to claim a clear path to the bedside?
  • Any news on Masayo Takahashi’s IPSC trial? More preliminary data?. I’m excited to see how that goes.
  • I keep hoping also that more biotechs will present at ISSCR and be given plenary talks.
  • Is ethics/policy given sufficient attention at the meeting?
  • Will CRISPR-Cas9 editing of stem cells be the talk of the meeting? The explosive trend of this amazing gene editing technology in science overall has really gripped everyone’s attention.
  • How many reports of clinical trial data will be given? Sometimes in the past ISSCR meetings have had a sizable tilt towards basic science. Could that be changing?

3 thoughts on “Insider Trends on Stem Cells to Look Out for at ISSCR 2015 Stockholm”

  1. If I remember right I read that Vacanti was on Ocata’s science board or something like that.Right after the stem cell acid fiasco.
    Also it looks like England may one up the U.S. and allow the use of Ocata’s RPE cells before we do.It’s an embarrassment as well as an outrage.It’s a good thing their health care system is not profit driven like ours.Their concern is for the patients and getting them better.And of course paying for it.

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