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

Are we addicted to talking about dopamine? In this episode, we tackle dopamine hype with real science: what dopamine is doing in the brain, how we study it, and how it's been misunderstood.

----

SHOW NOTES

two articles tackling dopamine nation:

• https://awjuliani.medium.com/beyond-dopamine-nation-towards-a-fuller-picture-of-addiction-and-recovery-97b37e17235e
• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/opinion/addiction-dopamine-brain-chemistry.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yVA.uvbi.PVfFQMzMudvb&smid=url-share

other great takes on this topic:

• mark humphries "the crimes against dopamine" https://medium.com/the-spike/the-crimes-against-dopamine-b82b082d5f3d
• https://youtu.be/HZRGWPLeMIg?si=Ponb7AagEa4QN2BY

things that cause dopamine release, as studied with PET:

• video games https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9607763/
• music https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2726
• yes, cocaine https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9331351/ (relatedly, nora volkow's work: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18617195/)
• not just reward in isolation https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922009521

more papers that fueled the sciency talk here:

• https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.neuro.28.061604.135722
• https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1513619112
• https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1014269108
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32974872/

songs covered in the episode:

• "dopamine" by robyn https://youtu.be/vitil9qMN6A?si=mMu1FliQP4-6QSIE
• "dopamine" by madelline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upy4rB8V3T4

----

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

You can find the talk Cat gave about learning and its citations here: https://github.com/DrCatHicks/tailscale_talk

On beliefs about humans being more genetically dissimilar than they are, work primarily done by Brian Donovan: Donovan et al. (2024). "Humane genomics education can reduce racism." Science, 383(6685), 818–822. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7895

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