Stanford Stem Cell Product, Delayed for More than a Decade, to be Tested Again
By Lisa M. Krieger,
San Jose Mercury News
| 06. 14. 2015
STANFORD -- In the 1990s, Stanford's Irv Weissman created a unique way to grow and deliver blood stem cells to desperate patients with aggressive cancers, boosting survival rates.
But then the discovery itself died -- a victim of the heartbreaking economics of commercial stem-cell development, where the long and rocky road of research, especially in the field of "personalized medicine," often discourages investment.
Now, 10 years after the technique's sale and then abandonment by a biotech company, it is back in Weissman's hands. The goal, he said, is to finally resume his research to prove, once and for all, its effectiveness in patients with no other hope.
"I am frustrated by more than a decade of delay," said Weissman, who codirects the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. "But I'm delighted that medical need, rather than rapid profits, is now the primary criterion to translate our stem cell discoveries."
Weissman's discovery was a method to isolate, purify and transplant cells, called blood-forming stem cells. These are the cells deep in the marrow of our bones that generate...
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