Press Release Dated

Press Release Dated, January 5,

Geron Corporation Appoints Graham Cooper as

Chief Financial Officer

MENLO PARK, Calif., January

5, 2012 - Geron Corporation

(Nasdaq: GERN) today announced the appointment

of Graham Cooper as Executive Vice President, Finance and Business

Development, and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Cooper will provide direction for all financial matters

for Geron and be responsible for new business opportunities and investor relations for the

Graham is a senior biotechnology executive with

an excellent track record of accomplishment on

Wall Street and as the Chief Financial Officer of a publicly traded company, said John A. Scarlett,

M.D., Geron s President and Chief Executive Officer. We look forward to taking

advantage of his operational expertise and strategic input as Geron begins a critical year in the development

of our oncology franchise, including our two novel, first-in-class,

clinical-stage products,

imetelstat and GRN1005.

I am pleased to be joining Geron at

this important time in the Company's history, said Mr. Cooper. With the recent change in strategic focus and the

promise of its two oncology programs, I believe the Company is poised to create tremendous value for shareholders. I am

joining an outstanding team that I have great confidence will move these programs forward effectively.

From 2006 until 2011, Mr. Cooper served as Senior Vice President, Chief

Financial Officer and Treasurer of

Orexigen Therapeutics. He was instrumental in growing Orexigen from a venture-backed

startup into a sizeable public company, completing a large Phase 3 obesity program and filing

an NDA with the FDA. Previously, Mr. Cooper held the position of Director, Health Care Investment

Banking, at Deutsche Bank Securities, where for over eight years he was responsible

for executing and managing a wide variety of financing and merger and acquisition transactions

in the life sciences field. Mr. Cooper has earned a C.P.A. and holds a B.A. in Economics from the University

of California at Berkeley and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Geron is a biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class cancer therapeutics. Imetelstat, the company's lead telomerase inhibitor, is currently being evaluated in four Phase 2 clinical oncology studies for the following indications: non-small cell lung cancer, breast cancer, essential thrombocythemia and multiple myeloma. GRN1005, an LRP-directed peptide-drug conjugate, is being evaluated in two Phase 2 clinical trials, one for brain metastases arising from non-small cell lung cancer and the other for brain metastases arising from breast cancer. For more information about the Company, visit www.geron.com.

Anna Krassowska, Ph.D., Investor and Media Relations, 650-473-7765, info@geron.com