One of the great things about being in New York City is that unique opportunities present themselves that allow you to interact with all sorts of interesting people doing all sorts of interesting things. I had the opportunity in May, along with my colleague Dr. Shahin Rafii, to make a presentation at the United Nations, for a seminar series sponsored by the UN International Women's Forum. The title of our presentation was "The Promise of Stem Cells for Curing Disease". See below:
No, sadly this was not the room for the seminar :( it was a bit less.....big.
However, we did also get a chance to tour the UN, including visiting this famous room used by the General Assembly, and to wander for a bit among the working ambassadors from all over the world, who for some reason can park basically anywhere they want and never get a ticket....dont get me started on that one.
Anyway, I have lived in NY most of my adult life, and we work just a mile uptown from the UN, but I had never visited. I highly recommend it! It's really like a special museum and has an incredible assortment of gifted art, from countries around the globe. Urns seems to be particularly popular. I prefer the huge tapestries. Lots of important educational information about what is really really bad, and also really really good about the world today.
One of the major topics of our presentation was that stem cell cures are REAL but thus far pretty limited (basically, hematopoietic stem cell transplants), and that much more research is required before additional types of stem cell therapies are going to be ready for the clinic. However, that has not precluded "clinics" from making outrageous claims to new stem cell therapies that can cure most anything (with patient testimonials!!). These fraudulent outfits can do much more harm than good, and can surely give stem cells a bad reputation. Yes, some of them can be found in places like Costa Rico, but you can find them right on Fifth Avenue as well. Our advice was to avoid anything that is not a clinical trial, as those are the only scientifically valid stem cell treatments for the meanwhile outside of HSCs (and HSCs only for replacing the blood system!). I highly recommend the information provided by the International Society for Stem Cell Research, regarding this topic: http://www.closerlookatstemcells.org/stem-cells-and-medicine/
However, we did also get a chance to tour the UN, including visiting this famous room used by the General Assembly, and to wander for a bit among the working ambassadors from all over the world, who for some reason can park basically anywhere they want and never get a ticket....dont get me started on that one.
Anyway, I have lived in NY most of my adult life, and we work just a mile uptown from the UN, but I had never visited. I highly recommend it! It's really like a special museum and has an incredible assortment of gifted art, from countries around the globe. Urns seems to be particularly popular. I prefer the huge tapestries. Lots of important educational information about what is really really bad, and also really really good about the world today.
One of the major topics of our presentation was that stem cell cures are REAL but thus far pretty limited (basically, hematopoietic stem cell transplants), and that much more research is required before additional types of stem cell therapies are going to be ready for the clinic. However, that has not precluded "clinics" from making outrageous claims to new stem cell therapies that can cure most anything (with patient testimonials!!). These fraudulent outfits can do much more harm than good, and can surely give stem cells a bad reputation. Yes, some of them can be found in places like Costa Rico, but you can find them right on Fifth Avenue as well. Our advice was to avoid anything that is not a clinical trial, as those are the only scientifically valid stem cell treatments for the meanwhile outside of HSCs (and HSCs only for replacing the blood system!). I highly recommend the information provided by the International Society for Stem Cell Research, regarding this topic: http://www.closerlookatstemcells.org/stem-cells-and-medicine/
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