Full Press Release Details
CEO, Dr. Michael West to Moderate Session on Mapping the Cellular Basis
of Life at the 2013 World Stem Cell Summit
ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--December 4, 2013--BioTime, Inc. (NYSE
MKT: BTX) and subsidiary, LifeMap Sciences, announced that BioTime's
CEO, Dr. Michael West will lead a session titled "From Mapping the
Genome to Mapping the Embryome: The Urgent Need for an International
Initiative" today at the 2013 World Stem Cell Summit in San Diego,
California. The session will include world leaders in stem cell biology
discussing how major advances in stem cell science and human health
could be achieved by databasing the cellular components of the human
body. In addition to Dr. West, Dr. Ronit Shtrichman, Technical Vice
President of BioTime's Israeli subsidiary LifeMap Sciences Ltd., will
give a presentation titled "LifeMap Discovery : An
online database, integrating molecular and cellular information on
embryonic development to improve stem cell research." LifeMap
Discovery is a novel platform that links embryology,
molecular and stem cell research in one location and is currently
available to scientists worldwide at http://discovery.lifemapsc.com.
Dr. West's slide presentation will be made available on BioTime's
website at www.biotimeinc.com.
According to Dr. West, "The opportunity presented by pluripotents stem
cells to manufacture for the first time in the history of medicine all
of the cellular components of the human body on an industrial scale is
at once both opportunity and challenge. The opportunity is to build a
new and emerging field we call 'regenerative medicine' in which many
currently incurable diseases are treated with cells capable of
regenerating tissues afflicted with disease. The challenge relates to
the complexity of the cell types in the body and our ability to
manufacture products with precisely-defined compositions for human
clinical use. BioTime's PureStem technology
which facilitates the industrial scale up of defined cell types as well
as the growing international initiative to map all of the cellular
building blocks of human life together may speed the applications of
these discoveries into life-saving therapies."
"Having access to information at a genetic level of the transient
embryonic progenitor cells that exist in a developing embryo holds great
promise to solving many perplexing problems that exist in stem cell
biology. Many of these progenitor cells are unique and undescribed in
current scientific literature. Our work with PureStem
embryonic progenitors has shown them to be potentially superior to
pluripotent and adult stem cells for use in treating chronic
degenerative diseases. Consolidated and annotated data describing the
characteristics of these progenitor cells in the mammalian embryo, such
as the mouse, at the cellular and gene expression level, would be a
valuable resource to all stem cell scientists," says Jeffrey Janus, CEO
of BioTime's ESI BIO subsidiary.
About LifeMap Sciences, Inc.
LifeMap Sciences' (www.lifemapsc.com) core technology and
business is based on its Integrated Biomedical Knowledgebase and
discovery platform for biomedical research, which currently includes GeneCards :
the leading human gene database; LifeMap Discovery , the
database of embryonic development, stem cell research and regenerative
medicine; and MalaCards, the human disease database. LifeMap's
products are used in many institutions including academia, research
hospitals, patent offices, and leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical
companies. LifeMap is also engaged in therapeutics discovery, utilizing
LifeMap's proprietary platform to aid in the development of products for
the treatment of degenerative diseases, including utilizing BioTime's
proprietary, PureStem human progenitor cell lines. In addition
to its currently marketed products, LifeMap is pursuing several new
internet and informatics products with substantial rapid revenue growth
potential, leveraging its existing products and their large user base.
BioTime is a biotechnology company engaged in research and product
development in the field of regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine
refers to therapies based on stem cell technology that are designed to
rebuild cell and tissue function lost due to degenerative disease or
injury. BioTime's focus is on pluripotent stem cell technology based on
human embryonic stem ("hES") cells and induced pluripotent stem ("iPS")
cells. hES and iPS cells provide a means of manufacturing every cell
type in the human body and therefore show considerable promise for the
development of a number of new therapeutic products. BioTime's
therapeutic and research products include a wide array of proprietary PureStem
progenitors, HyStem hydrogels, culture media,
and differentiation kits. BioTime is developing Renevia (a HyStem
product) as a biocompatible, implantable hyaluronan and collagen-based
matrix for cell delivery in human clinical applications. In addition,
BioTime has developed Hextend , a
blood plasma volume expander for use in surgery, emergency trauma
treatment and other applications. Hextend is
manufactured and distributed in the U.S. by Hospira, Inc. and in South
Korea by CJ CheilJedang Corporation under exclusive licensing agreements.
BioTime is also developing stem cell and other products for research,
therapeutic, and diagnostic use through its subsidiaries:
OncoCyte Corporation is developing products and technologies to
diagnose and treat cancer.
ES Cell International Pte Ltd., a Singapore private limited company,
develops hES products for research use.
OrthoCyte Corporation is developing therapies to treat orthopedic
disorders, diseases and injuries.
ReCyte Therapeutics, Inc. is developing therapies to treat a variety
of blood and lymphatic vascular disorders, as well as products for
research using iPS and other cell reprogramming technology.
Cell Cure Neurosciences Ltd. is an Israel-based biotechnology company
focused on developing stem cell-based therapies for retinal and
neurological degenerative diseases. Its lead product is OpRegen
for the treatment of macular degeneration.
LifeMap Sciences, Inc. markets, sells and distributes GeneCards ,
the leading human gene database, as part of an integrated database
suite that also includes the LifeMap Discovery database of
embryonic development, stem cell research and regenerative medicine,