About CellDecide.

CellDecide helps patients make sense of regenerative medicine: what is established, what is investigational, what is available abroad under different regulatory pathways, what evidence sits behind each claim, and what questions to ask before paying or traveling. We read the field across borders — patient-readable, evidence-disciplined, optimistic about where the science is going, and honest about how much it does and does not yet know.

Why this site exists

Patients researching regenerative medicine run into bold clinic claims, regulator warnings, dense scientific papers, medical-tourism ads, and personal testimonials — often on the same afternoon. Each one is partly true. Each one flattens a different part of the picture. The whole story is somewhere in the middle, and no single voice in that pile is trying to put it there.

The honest middle is harder, and more useful. It does not need a single villain — not regulators, not clinics, not patients. It looks at a specific treatment, for a specific indication, in a specific jurisdiction, and reports what is actually known. CellDecide exists to do that work, in plain English, on every page.

What makes CellDecide different

• A global regulatory lens, not FDA-only. We track U.S. FDA status alongside the local pathways used in countries that offer regenerative care — including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, China, Mexico, and Panama. The U.S. answer and the global answer go on the page together.
• Plain-English evidence labels, not vibes.For every treatment we describe, we say what is actually known — biological plausibility, early-phase trials, adequately powered randomized trials, or regulatory authorization for a specific indication — and we say it in plain language. We do not blur the gap between “shown to work” and “someone is selling it.”
• Clinic-quality questions, not just treatment names. A treatment is never a single number. We score eight dimensions separately — science, regulation, procedure, provider, safety, practical burden, alternatives, and conflicts — because they move on their own.
• Medical-tourism reality, not travel fantasy. Travel for care is a real option for many patients and is not by itself evidence of recklessness. It is also not by itself evidence of efficacy. We hold both at once.
• Transparent referrals and conflicts. CellDecide does not currently take referral compensation. If that changes, every relationship will be disclosed at the point of recommendation — and disclosure cannot rewrite an evidence rating or a safety signal.
• Plain-English life-science editorial voice. We write for patients and their families, not for a specialist audience and not for a sales funnel. The reader is doing serious research; we treat them like it.

Our point of view

We believe regenerative medicine may become one of the important medical fields of the coming decades. We also believe patients deserve clear evidence, clear regulatory status, and clear disclosure — at home and abroad — before they spend money or board a flight. Both can be true at the same time; the editorial discipline of this site is keeping both visible.

Different countries make different regulatory tradeoffs, and those tradeoffs change over time. CellDecide reports those tradeoffs in plain language. It does not read the world through a single regulator, and it does not turn regulatory differences into ideology in either direction.

Permitted in one jurisdiction is not the same as proven everywhere. Not FDA-approved is not the same as useless. Hospital-based is not the same as condition-proven. Hope is not the same as proof. Each of those statements belongs on the page when it applies — and only when it applies.

Who writes this

CellDecide is written and maintained by Jimmy L Wu, an evidence-first regenerative-medicine writer. Jimmy L Wu is not a licensed physician. Every page is reviewed against primary sources before publication — FDA and other national-regulator documents, NIH and ClinicalTrials.gov, ISSCR guidelines, Cochrane systematic reviews, peer-reviewed journals, and the relevant ministry or regulator in any country the page covers.

Clinical review by a licensed physician is not yet live on this site. Until it is, CellDecideshould be treated as an evidence-reading guide, not personal medical advice. We are actively engaging a credentialed reviewer (MD or PhD in a relevant field). When clinical review is live, reviewed pages will carry a top-of-page disclosure naming the reviewer, the reviewer's credentials and affiliation, and the review date. Full statement at medical-review policy.

How we work

On every page that names a specific treatment, we separate eight things, because they move on their own and collapsing them hides exactly the information a patient needs:

• Science — what human evidence exists for this specific indication, at what rung of the evidence ladder.
• Regulation — where it is approved, conditionally permitted, investigational, or unregulated, named by jurisdiction.
• Procedure — what cell or biologic, from what source, processed how, delivered how, dosed how, on what schedule.
• Provider — who delivers it, with what credentials, at what kind of institution, under what oversight.
• Safety — adverse events reported in the literature or by regulators, and the realistic risk profile.
• Practical burden — total cost, travel, repeat visits, recovery, follow-up.
• Alternatives — standard care, registered trials, and other paths for the same condition.
• Conflicts — anything that could distort the page, disclosed in plain language.

We work from primary sources first, name each source on the page that uses it, and re-verify when the source updates. The long version — including the evidence ladder, the per-treatment framework, and the clinic-review standard — lives at methodology. The full list of regulators, societies, and journals we cite lives at sources.

What this site is not

• Not medical advice. Nothing on CellDecide is tailored to your case. We sort the evidence; we do not prescribe.
• Not a clinic, and not a substitute for licensed care. Use this site to ask sharper questions, then take those questions to a physician who can examine you and read your records.
• Not currently a referral service. We do not recommend specific clinics or hospitals, in any country, in v1. When we name a clinic by name, it is to discuss its regulatory context, source critique, or claim-versus-evidence audit — never as a referral.
• Not anti-treatment. Regenerative medicine is moving, and some of its pathways are real. We say so when the evidence supports it, and we name the conditions it does not yet support.
• Not promotional of any treatment.We do not use “cure,” “miracle,” or “guaranteed” in the language of this site, and we do not call a treatment “safe” or “effective” in general — only for a specific indication, sourced to a specific study or authorization.
• Not a claim that medical tourism is right for any individual. Travel for care is a real option for some patients and a bad fit for others. The decision is medical, financial, and personal — and it is not ours to make.
• Not a promise that any treatment will work for any individual. Evidence is a description of populations. Your physician, with your records, is the right person to translate that into a recommendation for you.

Future referrals and disclosures

CellDecide does not currently recommend specific clinics or hospitals, in any country, and is not currently a referral service. That may change in a later phase of the site, and we will say so plainly when it does.

If CellDecide receives referral fees, sponsorships, affiliate compensation, or clinic payments in the future, that relationship will be disclosed at the point of recommendation — in plain English, before any link to a clinic or program. Compensation will not determine evidence ratings, regulatory summaries, safety warnings, or whether uncertainty is shown on the page.

The current inventory of every commercial relationship that touches the site — what is live, what is planned, and what is explicitly not live — is published at disclosures.

What to read next

• Methodology — the worldview behind every page, including the evidence ladder and the eight dimensions we score separately.
• How CellDecide weighs evidence — a plain-English reading guide to lab studies, early human trials, controlled trials, and approvals.
• Sources — the regulators, societies, registries, and journals we cite from.
• Medical-review policy — what review happens before publication, and the current state of clinical review.
• Disclosures — affiliate, advertising, and editorial-independence statements.
• Questions to ask a stem-cell clinic — the per-clinic question checklist we apply on every clinic-quality page.
• Stem-cell clinic red flags — the marketing patterns we treat as warning signs.