STEM CELL STOCKS

[dlry]

Think reduction in healthcare costs if successful:

Salk scientists report success with stem cell therapy
http://tinyurl.com/krgmbc

[dlry]

Do you think GE see's a market in the future for stem cell therapies?
What other way do you see in the future to contain medical costs?

GE Healthcare and Geron Announce Exclusive Global Agreement to Commercialize Stem Cell Drug Discovery Technologies
http://tinyurl.com/nv46qk

Stanford University opens its magic box in stem cell research
http://tinyurl.com/l4n5pw

[dlry]

Big names continue to flow towards this technology.



Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 11:02pm PDT | Modified: Wednesday, July 8, 2009, 9:04am

Stem cell startups merge, grab VC cashSan Francisco Business Times - by Ron Leuty

A dream team of influential venture capitalists is putting cash and top-drawer talent into the new wave of stem cell technology.

IPierian Inc., a South San Francisco company formed with the merger of two venture-backed startups, will focus on manipulating mature stem cells into ones with embryonic-like qualities that can be used to treat neurodegenerative problems like Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The new company is backed by a fresh round of $10 million from MPM Capital and $1.5 million from FinTech Capital Partners.

IZumi Bio Inc. — supported by $20 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Highland Capital Partners — and Pierian Inc. announced the merger on the eve of this week’s International Society for Stem Cell Research meeting in Barcelona.

Pierian was founded by MPM Capital managing directors Ashley Dombkowski and Robert Millman and Harvard University scientists.

IPierian — the new company — will be lead by iZumi CEO John Walker, with former Pfizer Inc. executive Corey Goodman as chairman.

IPierian will focus on so-called induced pluripotent stem cells for patients with difficult-to-treat neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s disease, spinal muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Longer term, the company will explore metabolic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and other therapeutic areas.

“Disease-specific pluripotent stem cells are powerful new tools for drug screening and promise to revolutionize the treatment of intractable conditions,” said Dr. George Daley, who along with fellow Harvard faculty members Douglas Melton and Lee Rubin were the scientific founders of Pierian.

IPierian’s scientific advisory board will be led by Daley, director of stem cell transplantation at the Children’s Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical Center, and Dr. Deepak Srivastava, director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco.

Among others on the scientific advisory board are Goodman, who until May headed Pfizer’s Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center in South San Francisco; Dr. Lennart Mucke, director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease; Dr. Benoit Bruneau, an associate investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, and Dr. Matthias Hebrok, associate director for research at the diabetes center at the University of California, San Francisco.

Srivastava, Mucke and Bruneau also are professors at UCSF — Mucke in neurology and neuroscience and Bruneau and Srivastava in the pediatrics department.

IPierian’s management includes Walker, chief technology officer Dr. Berta Strulovici, and Dr. Dushyant Pathak, who will lead business development.

IZumi, formed last year by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Highland Capital Partners, has collaborations with the Gladstone Institutes and the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application at Japan’s Kyoto University, where Dr. Shinya Yamanaka first succeeded in reprogramming adult cells in a mouse to become like embryonic-like.

Yamanaka also works part time at the Gladstone Institutes and UCSF.

Embryonic stem cells are the gold standard of stem cell research because they are pluripotent, capable of developing into heart, muscle, skin or other cells.

Induced pluripotent cells, like those created by Yamanaka, are seen by many as a way to sidestep ethical and political issues associated with extracting stem cells from embryos, but others say they can cause cancer in mice if any of the genes used to reprogram the cells remain active.



Email Ron Leuty at rleuty@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4939

[dlry]

Keep your eye on athx
Cleveland quietly becoming leader in adult stem cell industry
Emerging field finds fertile ground to grow

Therapy, then success
Almost a year after he started adult stem cell therapy treatment, George Reed still chokes back tears when he talks about his regained health - made possible by the area's investment in research.

At his cardiologist's suggestion, he enrolled in a stem cell clinical trial at University Hospitals in downtown Cleveland. For a year, his doctors injected stem cells used to grow new blood vessels in areas of his heart that were not getting enough blood.

Reed's condition had progressively worsened to the point that he was forced to stop and catch his breath every few steps. Reed lived alone at the time. Simple household tasks left him exhausted. Picking up his mail was so laborious that he clambered into his pickup truck to drive to his mailbox.

After three months of the therapy, Reed noticed a significant improvement in his health. By the end of the clinical trial, he was able to walk two miles comfortably - slowly, but always looking ahead, like Cleveland's adult stem cell industry.

http://tinyurl.com/qnhe4f

[dlry]

If some group would support these researchers the way the fed the supports the financial oligarchs we would be revolutionizing medicine and the healthcare industry for the betterment of all---imagine that!

September 10, 2009
First stem cell clinical trial for treating brain’s “communication highway” to begin

Source: University of California - San Francisco
Date: September 10, 2009

Summary:

UCSF researchers are set to begin a Phase I clinical trial in collaboration with StemCells, Inc. to test the safety and preliminary effectiveness of using neural stem cells to treat children with a rare, fatal form of a brain disorder known as Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD). Currently, there are no effective treatments for the fatal forms of the disease, which affects males that inherit a single defective gene.

The trial is the first neural stem cell trial in the United States designed to treat a disease resulting from a lack of “myelin,” a substance that insulates nerve cells’ communications fibers. Nerve cells communicate through axons that function much like electrical wires. Myelin is the insulating coat that surrounds the axons to prevent short circuits. Damage to the cells in the brain that make myelin, called “oligodendrocytes,” is the hallmark of multiple sclerosis and is involved in certain forms of cerebral palsy.









http://news.ucsf.edu/releases/first-ste ... n-highway/

[dlry]

Some day a lot of sick children and people will have their dreams come true--then healthcare will be a non issue--that will be a good day:

Rare Genetic Disease Successfully Reversed Using Stem Cell Transplantation

The work of Cherqui and her colleagues may have wider applications for other genetic diseases, providing proof of principle that adult stem cell transplants may be successful in humans for genetic diseases with systemic defects, especially those of a progressive nature.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 131656.htm

[dlry]

Neuralstem Receives FDA Approval to Commence First ALS Stem Cell Trial

Neuralstem is the first company to commence a stem cell trial to treat ALS. The trial will study the safety of Neuralstem's cells and the surgical procedures and devices required for multiple injections of Neuralstem's cells directly into the grey matter of the spinal cord. The FDA's approval represents a significant step toward delivering regenerative medicine directly to damaged neural cells in humans. ALS affects roughly 30,000 people in the U.S., with about 7,000 new diagnoses per year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Neuralste ... l?x=0&.v=1

[dlry]

Harvard team reports major step forward in cell reprogramming

Source: Harvard University
Date: October 8, 2009

Summary:

A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers has made a major advance toward producing induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, that are safe enough to use in treating diseases in patients. The chemical that the team used is a small molecule that members named RepSox in honor of another Boston team. It replaces Sox2 and cMyc, two of the four genes currently being used to reprogram adult skin cells into an embryonic-like state.

“This demonstrates that we’re halfway home, and remarkably we got halfway home with just one chemical,” said Kevin Eggan, an HSCI principal faculty member who is the senior author of the paper being published online today by the journal Cell Stem Cell.

http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/found ... rogramming

[dlry]

I have liked this company for a while now. Has not done much but I found a recent blog that listed many of the factors I thought made it interesting. Do your own DD.

ATHX
A Whole New Paradigm, Athersys (Nasdaq: ATHX)
http://www.scimitarequity.com/blog/2009 ... sdaq-athx/

[dlry]

Maybe the FDA should step on it so some people can regain their's......


UCI embryonic stem cell therapy restores walking ability in rats with neck injuries
Study supports expansion of first human trial to include those with cervical spinal cord damage

— Irvine, Calif., November 9, 2009 —

In January, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration gave Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., permission to test the UC Irvine treatment in individuals with thoracic spinal cord injuries, which occur below the neck. However, trying it in those with cervical damage wasn't approved because preclinical testing with rats hadn't been completed.

http://today.uci.edu/news/nr_cervicalst ... 091109.php

Watch the video:

http://www.uci.edu/video/cervicalstemcell/