Originally published at: Tech startup successfully implants dopamine into Parkinson's patients | Boing Boing
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Given the track record of medical tech companies, I’m more than a little skeptical…
I hope so… a friend’s mother has Parkinson’s and it’s difficult to watch someone with this disease. 
But again, given the track record of medical tech companies, skepticism is warranted…
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Yeah n=12, doesn’t scream confidence by what little I remember of my statistics class. It just hints at hope… for potential investor cash.
I’d also rather they be cautious too and start small by design even so. Grey matter modification is nothing to take lightly. I’d don’t want this to become a Neuralink II: Brain Stuff Bugaloo.
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BlueRock is a subsidiary of Bayer, so… probably not.
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… can I invest now? Is there blockchain and A.I.?
But the PR statement says it “may have reduced symptoms for some of them”
How can that not be enough to convince people to have their skulls opened and foreign cells implanted?
/s (in case it’s needed)
Seriously, this is purely an attempt to raise money on the potential of stem cell work that may not be effective or ethical or practical. Maybe we shouldn’t be elevating Bayer’s sponcon
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Everyone does press after a successful clinical trial.
Bayer doesn’t need to raise capital. The company is sitting on $10 billion in cash.
Reading anything into efficacy for a phase I trial is pointless. The trial was to establish whether it is safe. That is what is supposed to be enough to convince people with an incurable disease to have foreign cells implanted in their heads during phase II trials next year.
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And they’re gonna need it because of their brilliant idea to buy Monsanto, and Monsanto’s lawsuits over RoundUp with it.
Anyway:
Remake starring, I don’t know, Shia LaBeouf and Russell Brand?
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Oh, is that how corporations work? Once they make money, they stop trying to get more? 
Bayer bought this company for $1billion purely to try to profit from its stem cell work and will try to do so no matter what the efficacy or “ethicacy” of the treatment is
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No. It’s just that raising capital doesn’t make a company money; it’s not revenue. It creates debt or dilutes existing shareholders. Doing so without a damn good reason is how one gets sued for breach of fiduciary duty.
I don’t know what ethicacy is, but if it’s related to ethics, I don’t see anything problematic here, but then I support embryonic stem cells research. This otherwise appears to be a bog standard clinical trial.
The level of cynicism here is just a bit much. This is a modest success that opens up a new vector to target a debilitating incurable disease even if this particular drug ultimately fails.
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It’s all based on irrational impulses, I’m sure… After all, not like the core ideology of modern technology start-ups (move fast, break stuff in order to make some few individuals even wealthier) is at all at odds with a more careful and measured approach to medicine that actually produces useful innovations (the scientific method)… /s
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