With one week left to vote to pick the top 12 finalists for the Stem Cell Person of the Year 2014 Award, we have more than 2,800 votes in so far. From the top 12 vote-getters, I will choose the winner. This is the third year of this award. I self-fund this award out of my own pocket with the winner receiving $2,000. Voting closes at midnight on October 22nd. You can vote once per day here and see the evolving results. We have …Read More
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Nominations have closed and we have more than two dozen nominations for Stem Cell Person of the Year 2014. It’s an exciting, diverse group including some news faces as well as nominees from years past as well. Happy Stem Cell Day! You can now vote for your choice for the top finalists in the poll below. One vote per IP address is allowed per day. Voting will end on October 22 at midnight. The winner of the voting may not be the overall winner of the …Read More
Stem cell biotech BioTime announced the news today that its subsidiary Cell Cure Neurosciences (Cell Cure) has filed an IND with the FDA for an embryonic stem (ES) cell-based therapy for Dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The product to be tested is OpRegen, which the company indicates is “the first IND for an ES cell-based therapy developed in Israel.” Cell Cure in its PR on this IND also listed three other key bullet points: “IND filed for Phase I/IIa dose escalation trial in patients …Read More
The BioTime subsidiary, Asterias, has received FDA approval for a combined Phase I/IIa clinical trial of OPC1 for treating spinal cord injury. BioTime (BTX) and Asterias (ASTY) have picked up the portfolio of the former Geron clinical trial using oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC). Asterias also acquired a second element from Geron in the form of a lung cancer treatment based on stem cells that sounds quite intriguing. To learn more about this exciting news I interviewed Jane Lebkowski, President of Research and Development at Asterias. 1. …Read More
Type 1 Diabetes is a huge global problem. Where are the solutions that would compliment or replace insulin therapy for diabetics? There haven’t been too many that have gotten very far, which makes the news of a potential stem cell-based therapy moving along in the pipeline all the more exciting. ViaCyte (see more posts here, here, here, here on the company) just got FDA approval for its investigational new drug (IND), paving the way to start a combined Phase I/II clinical trial. ViaCyte was …Read More
It’s been an important week for stem cells. Although I’ve been busy working on multiple grants and papers, when I take a break I like to read up on what’s been going on with stem cells. What are the top stem cell stories and headlines of the week? CIRM awarded Asterias (a subsidiary of BioTime) $14.3 million to continue clinical research into the use of hESC-derived OPCs for spinal cord injury. This is great news as the work formerly started by Geron lives again …Read More
Can Google’s new anti-aging company, Calico, have you Googling at age 140? Don’t sell your burial plot just yet. The idea of anti-aging has been around for a very long time and efforts to combat aging have spanned millennia largely without any success so Calico (apparently short for California Life Company, which sounds more like an insurance company to me) faces long odds. Note too that Calico cats are not known for any particular predisposition to long life. Hmmm. Note that you might find …Read More
Who might make a fantastic new CIRM President? The California stem cell community is abuzz with this question. This new President will not only lead CIRM today, but also in all likelihood will steer CIRM in its new incarnation after 2017, what I’ve called CIRM 2.0. At least that would be ideal. CIRM has posted a position/candidate specification document here including a summary of the position that includes this statement: The President of CIRM must be a nationally recognized leader with a vision, scientific credibility, and …Read More
I’m doing a series of posts on my recent conversation with BioTime CEO and pioneer of the stem cell field, Dr. Mike West. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 on Geron, ACT, and the history of the pluripotent stem cell field, particularly embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Today in Part 3, I am focusing on a key, broad flaw that West described as pervasive in the stem cell field. In Part 4, I’ll discuss his proposed solution. To introduce what he views as the …Read More
It was my pleasure recently to talk at length with Dr. Michael West, CEO of the Stem Cell Biotech, BioTime (BTX). West has been at the helm of BioTime since 2007 and is a true pioneer in the stem cell field. He founded Geron (GERN) and was a top leader at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT; stock symbol ACTC) in the early days. He contributed to the team that made human embryonic stem cells (hESC) a reality too. West and I talked at length about the …Read More