This is an excellent breakdown. The whole Sinclair story is one that depresses and frustrates me, and it's not clear why the media fails to hold him accountable. You're doing important work with this article!
Chris, I'm glad this registered with you. I share your frustration with Sinclair as well as the establishment, at Harvard and beyond, that allows him to continue to inflate the facts and, in the process, himself.
This is exactly the accountability piece the field needs more of. One technical detail worth adding for readers trying to judge the ER-100 trial on its merits rather than the hype: the trial is built on partial reprogramming using only three of the four original Yamanaka factors, OSK without c-Myc, specifically because c-Myc is the factor most strongly linked to dedifferentiation and tumor formation. That three-factor caution is itself an implicit admission of how dangerous full reprogramming is, and it also means the therapy is working with a narrower, less validated effect than the original Yamanaka biology everyone name-drops. None of the magazine coverage you're describing explains that tradeoff, which is a pretty basic thing to get right if you're going to frame this as the vanguard of reversing aging rather than a cautious, deliberately limited eye trial.
Well said, Paul! It’s very hard to find high quality reporting these days. And I appreciate you using your journalistic skills and experiences to inform us on something presented as reporting really is promotion or deception.
This is an excellent breakdown. The whole Sinclair story is one that depresses and frustrates me, and it's not clear why the media fails to hold him accountable. You're doing important work with this article!
Chris, I'm glad this registered with you. I share your frustration with Sinclair as well as the establishment, at Harvard and beyond, that allows him to continue to inflate the facts and, in the process, himself.
This is exactly the accountability piece the field needs more of. One technical detail worth adding for readers trying to judge the ER-100 trial on its merits rather than the hype: the trial is built on partial reprogramming using only three of the four original Yamanaka factors, OSK without c-Myc, specifically because c-Myc is the factor most strongly linked to dedifferentiation and tumor formation. That three-factor caution is itself an implicit admission of how dangerous full reprogramming is, and it also means the therapy is working with a narrower, less validated effect than the original Yamanaka biology everyone name-drops. None of the magazine coverage you're describing explains that tradeoff, which is a pretty basic thing to get right if you're going to frame this as the vanguard of reversing aging rather than a cautious, deliberately limited eye trial.
Well said, Paul! It’s very hard to find high quality reporting these days. And I appreciate you using your journalistic skills and experiences to inform us on something presented as reporting really is promotion or deception.