. . . I have an idea where those donations went.

Weekly reads: Prasad successor, Sammy Hagar stem cells, more on OSK trial, Finnish speaker needed - The Niche Stem cell biologist discusses the week's research and news in regenerative medicine including who could follow Prasad at CBER.

Weekly regenerative reads: anticipating Prasad successor at FDA, Sammy Hagar stem cells, more on pioneering but super risky OSK trial, Finnish speaker needed ipscell.com/2026/04/week... #stemcells

Western Tanager (pink head) vs. Bullock's Oriole (the more orange one). Who wins?

Lilly’s tirzepatide sheds lean muscle harder than Novo’s semaglutide, study suggests While Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide helps patients drop more weight than Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide, this might come with greater loss in lean body mass, according to a new study awaiting peer review.

Lilly's tirzepatide causes more lean muscle loss than Novo's semaglutide, a new study suggests.
endpoints.news/lillys-tirze...

Amid wellness craze, FDA weighs lifting peptide restrictions Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a self-professed “big fan” of peptides. They have grown in popularity for wellness and antiaging, but many remain untested.

RFK Jr and peptides? Sum: UGH.

Amid wellness craze, FDA weighs lifting peptide restrictions www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

@stemcells.bsky.social: “There’s just so little data that it’s hard to even put your finger on all the possible risks."

Andrew, you may be right. So far I just don't see any obvious problems in the paper.

Kennedy unbanned the unproven peptides today. These are just drugs with no good data.

Yeah BPC-157 is the star of this unproven peptide show. Nothing about this looming FDA unleashing of these peptides is likely to be "gold standard"

Electromagnetic field-inducible in vivo gene switch for remote spatiotemporal control of gene expression The EMF-inducible gene switch (Ei) platform provides precise spatiotemporal control of gene expression through Cyb5b-mediated calcium oscillations. This system enables Ei-OSK-driven in vivo rejuvenati...

Cool Cell pub. Korean team report finding EMF sensor Cyb5b & use it to make inducible gene expression system. Essentially remote-controlled EMF-driven mouse model. They use this including for OSK in vivo reprogramming. www.cell.com/cell/abstrac... Makes you wonder about human EMF exposure!

Ivermectin claims are spreading "like herpes at a kissing booth" What the drug can and can't do.

Ivermectin claims are spreading "like herpes at a kissing booth" open.substack.com/pub/garyschw... by @garyschw.bsky.social

NO good evidence of benefit for cancer, autism, COVID, etc.

KEY: “If there’s no benefit, then you only have risk.”

Peptide news from @statnews.com moving toward a corporate and ideology-driven, unsafe un-ban. "FDA panel will meet to discuss allowing broader access to certain peptides" www.statnews.com/2026/04/15/p...

In light of the news today FDA under RFK Jr. is moving to unban unproven peptides via the compounding advisory committee, it's still very odd that the DOJ just indicted someone related to many of these same peptides ipscell.com/2026/04/land...

FDA OKs risky, pioneering OSK rejuvenation trial with Sinclair's ER-100 - The Niche Biologist discusses how the FDA has cleared a trial of ER-100 or OSK, Oct-4, Sox-2, and Klf-4 for eye rejuvenation.

ICYMI: FDA OKs risky, pioneering OSK rejuvenation trial with Sinclair’s ER-100 ipscell.com/2026/02/fda-... Is it really time yet to be doing this in humans? #stemcells

Landmines await Vinay Prasad’s successor at the FDA Who would want to be the head of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research?

Paul Knoepfler on the "flexibility" that is required of FDA directors (about data and process) under Trump/RFK Jr, making it an impossible job right now.

Interesting insights on Prasad's & Hoeg's tenures too...

@stemcells.bsky.social

www.statnews.com/2026/04/13/v...

FDA OKs risky, pioneering OSK rejuvenation trial with Sinclair's ER-100 - The Niche Biologist discusses how the FDA has cleared a trial of ER-100 or OSK, Oct-4, Sox-2, and Klf-4 for eye rejuvenation.

ICYMI: FDA OKs risky, pioneering OSK rejuvenation trial with Sinclair’s ER-100 ipscell.com/2026/02/fda-... Is it really time yet to be doing this in humans? #stemcells

The April issue of Cancer Cell is in full bloom 🌸 and available now:

Landmines await Vinay Prasad’s successor at the FDA Who would want to be the head of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research?

Landmines await Vinay Prasad’s successor at the FDA www.statnews.com/2026/04/13/v... My new column over @statnews.com #stemcells #genetherapy

Weekly reads: federal stem cell charges disappear, SCBEM ethics, diet & MYCN cancer, how to make a nose - The Niche Over the years people have asked me why those selling unproven stem cells and more recently peptides haven’t faced more pushback. Cases do arise, but they often go nowhere. Civil cases like patient la...

Weekly #regenerative reads: federal stem cell charges disappear, SCBEM ethics, diet & MYCN cancer, how to make a nose (or what happens when you don't have one) ipscell.com/2026/04/week... #stemcells

This is all good and well but does it work on congressmen?

New fundamental physics measurement deepens quantum mystery

www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-...

A new calculation helps narrow down the mass of the W boson, one of the heaviest fundamental particles in the universe

ICYMI: Landmark fed indictment of clinic doc related to allegations on clinical use of popular "wellness" peptides like BPC-157, GHK, etc. ipscell.com/2026/04/land... Interesting timing as RFK Jr may make the FDA un-ban some of these soon

Landmark federal indictment for pop peptides alleged 'scheme' even as RFK Jr. may un-ban some ipscell.com/2026/04/land... #bpc157

Landmark federal indictment for pop peptides alleged 'scheme' even as RFK Jr. may un-ban some ipscell.com/2026/04/land... #bpc157

This is great work! I really like the idea of embedded ethics. I'm curious what you think of the piece by Moris, et al? Mostly agree?

25th amendment. Impeachment. I will support any avenue to remove Donald Trump from office. We cannot leave this man in charge of America’s nuclear weapons as he threatens to end an entire civilization. And Congress must not fund this reckless administration.

What the peptide craze reveals about Americans’ relationship with risk Why do RFK Jr. and other health influencers embrace unproven peptides while calling for more research into well-studied vaccines?

What the peptide craze reveals about Americans’ relationship with risk. Great piece from @sarah-todd.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2026/04/06/r... It's so odd how many people will not trust proven biomedical approaches but embrace and literally shoot up with unproven things like peptides

Less is more: Reducing zinc to boost stem cell-derived islet function and survival Zinc is required for insulin packaging into secretory granules, yet reduced zinc transporter activity paradoxically enhances beta cell function. In this issue, Wang et al. show that pharmacologic inhibition of zinc transport in stem cell-derived islets activates AMPK signaling and improves maturation, hypoxia resistance, VEGFA expression, and graft performance.

Less is more: Reducing zinc to boost stem cell-derived islet function and survival

Weekly reads: 1st FDA-approved CIRM supported therapy, asymmetric histone inheritance, stem cell retraction - The Niche Biologist discusses recent regenerative news including 1st FDA-approved CIRM TX, asymmetric histone inheritance, and skin cell memory.

Weekly #regenerative reads: 1st FDA-approved CIRM supported therapy, asymmetric histone inheritance, stem cell retraction ipscell.com/2026/04/week... #stemcells

Weekly reads: 1st FDA-approved CIRM supported therapy, asymmetric histone inheritance, stem cell retraction - The Niche Biologist discusses recent regenerative news including 1st FDA-approved CIRM TX, asymmetric histone inheritance, and skin cell memory.

Weekly #regenerative reads: 1st FDA-approved CIRM supported therapy, asymmetric histone inheritance, stem cell retraction ipscell.com/2026/04/week... #stemcells

My favorite weird & not-so-weird but cool science pictures from 16 years of The Niche: Part 1 - The Niche Professor discusses his favorite weird and not-so-weird science pictures from 15 years of The Niche including some related to stem cells.

My favorite weird & not-so-weird but cool science pictures from 16 years of The Niche: Part 1 ipscell.com/2026/04/my-f... #stemcells #stemcell including this flesh-faced "robot"