Stem cell researchers largely applaud his efforts.
"I saw that as a threat, first to patients, but to the field as well." "They were just saying, ‘Screw the rules, we're just going to set up shop and put up a website and start injecting people with stem cells,'" says Knoepfler, who co-wrote a paper last year documenting the scope of this industry. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and most aren't supported by evidence from randomized clinical trials. These offerings haven't been through the approval process at the U.S. physicians and clinics advertising stem cells to treat everything from sore knees to spinal cord injury. He has sounded the alarm on hundreds of U.S. It also has turned Knoepfler, a softspoken, unimposing presence in person, into a divisive figure. "It's one of the major sources of information layperson, and also for stem cell researchers," says Jeanne Loring of Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, an occasional commenter and guest writer on the blog. The blog, which now averages more than 4000 daily visits, has elevated him from an obscure bench scientist to an international spokesperson on all things stem cell. But thanks to The Niche, a blog he has run since 2010, Knoepfler has become an unlikely authority-and a dogged voice of caution-on the clinical use of stem cells. He mostly uses stem cells to study cancer-causing gene mutations. And his University of California (UC), Davis, lab doesn't study arthritis or eye disease, nor does he have any experience developing a stem cell therapy. Knoepfler, though housed in the Shriners Hospitals for Children here, isn't a physician. "Kindly apprise us of expenses and chance of success," they ask. The parents of a 12-year-old with a degenerative eye disease wonder whether there's any hope of averting blindness with a stem cell injection.
SACRAMENTO-Back in his lab after a week of vacation, Paul Knoepfler slogs through backlogged emails: A 71-year-old woman with arthritic knees would like to know whether a stem cell clinic she researched can give her relief.