Ashley and Cat discuss stem cells, gene editing, a future in which we can grow new organs, and explore the borders of creepy-exciting science!

Show Notes

Gene editing in the news

Gene editing incident described in the introduction:

https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-death-girl-chinese-gene-editing-trial-was-never-made-public

More recent coverage of this incident and others: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02497-2

Proof-of-concept reports on gene editing in patient cells

Ashley underestimated how many proof-of-concepts there have been for gene editing in cells derived from patients themselves. There actually are some exciting clinical trials to treat various diseases (though nothing at a large scale as of yet):

• Sickle cell: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2309676
• Type 1 Diabetes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39326417/
• Parkinson’s: https://www.biospace.com/press-releases/aspen-neuroscience-announces-positive-12-month-data-from-its-aspiro-clinical-trial-in-a-late-breaking-oral-presentation-at-the-ad-pd-2026-international-conference-on-alzheimers-and-parkinsons-diseases

Core research papers

The original “Yamanaka” paper (actually Takahashi & Yamanaka, 2006): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16904174/

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social