MIT Tech Review Editor on biotech’s rising star

Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of MIT’s Technology Review Magazine who was speaking last week, at MIT’s Emerging Technologies Conference had the opinion in a discussion, that “It’s probably fair to say there’s more revolutionary innovation occuring in biotech and in the material sciences (nanotech) than there is in IT at the moment.” Link
It is not by accident that the Magazine is the home of the SENS Challenge aka the De Grey Technology Review Controversy on healthy life extension.

IT folks: more attention please to biotech and regenerative medicine! Thank you.

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Stem Cell Company’s Merger with a Cosmetics Company

As I mentioned before, continuous regeneration treatment of the whole human body called Pimm could be interpreted as inside plastic surgery for functional reasons. And now here comes one nice example of the present biotech trend:

U.S. stem cell companies: a new roundup

From Investor’s Business Daily: Big pharmaceutical firms and major biotechs are holding back as well, William Caldwell CEO of Advanced Cell Technology says. “While all of them have stem cell development labs someplace in the bowels of their organizations, they are not putting capital into the sector.” These companies are nervous about the political and ethical climate associated with the science, he says. The same holds true for venture capital firms. “VCs will take any risks — except political,” Caldwell said. Despite the political fallout, there’s plenty of research going on. Plenty of companies are trying to turn the stem cell therapy business into a success.
StemCells, which develops therapeutics to treat damaged or deteriorating organ systems, has followed a path away from embryonic stem cells in developing a treatment for Batten’s disease, a rare genetic disorder in children that is always fatal. Using nonembryonic human stem cells, the firm is about to launch a phase one trial on six children. Targeting Batten’s might seem odd, considering that as few as 600 Americans suffer from the condition. But StemCells Chief Executive Martin McGlynn says doing so is the best way to make use of available money and leverage the technology into other diseases. The challenge is convincing others, including Wall Street, of the long-term payoff. A handful of firms are moving into various clinical-trial phases. Aastrom Biosciences is running a phase two trial of its bone repair technology based on adult stem cells. Osiris Therapeutics has a phase three trial of its stem cell drug for a life-threatening immune condition that can hit cancer patients after a bone marrow transplant. ViaCell is monitoring subjects who received its stem cell treatment for post-chemo-radiation blood cancer patients. The stem cells in the phase one trial came from umbilical cord blood.

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