Abstracts on very small embryonic-like stem cells presented at ASH annual meeting

Dec 8 2009

NeoStem, Inc. (NYSE Amex: NBS), which is pioneering the pre-disease collection, processing and long-term storage of adult stem cells for future medical need and holds the exclusive, worldwide license to VSEL(TM) technology that uses very small embryonic-like stem cells isolated from peripheral blood, announced today that an abstract authored by NeoStem-affiliated scientists was presented in a poster presentation at the prestigious American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in New Orleans on December 5, 2009.

Dr. Robin Smith, M.D., MBA, NeoStem's Chief Executive Officer, said, "This week the National Institutes of Health approved the first 13 human embryonic stem cell lines for use in NIH-funded research so we are excited to share the news that there are actually adult stem cells that share many of the morphological characteristics of embryonic stem cells, removing risk of serious graft versus host disease or tissue rejection that can occur when the source of cells used for regenerative purposes is from a donor other than the patient receiving the stem cells. We are very proud that the significance of our very small embryonic-like stem cell research has been recognized by the prestigious American Society of Hematology. This is an important endorsement of the scientific advances that NeoStem is sponsoring in the field of adult stem cell research."

Abstracts selected for ASH poster presentation feature the latest research in the field and are chosen through blind scoring and a peer-review process as the most outstanding among the thousands submitted for the annual meeting. The NeoStem study that shows the successful mobilization of very small embryonic-like stem cells from the bone marrow to peripheral blood, was presented in Poster Session I on December 5th.

The authors of the abstract included:

• Dr. Mariusz Ratajczak, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Stem Cell Biology Program at University of Louisville, which partners with NeoStem to develop technologies, based on NeoStem's exclusive license, to identify and isolate rare adult stem cells called very small embryonic-like stem cells;
• Dr. Wayne A. Marasco, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Chairman of NeoStem's Scientific Advisory Board;
• Denis O. Rodgerson, Ph.D., MSC, Director of Stem Cell Science at NeoStem.
• Satish Medicetty, Ph.D., Director of Stem Cell Research & Laboratory Operations at NeoStem.

The abstract shows that very small embryonic-like stem cells, normally rare in peripheral blood, can be released in greater numbers from the bone marrow by using an FDA approved drug called G-CSF. They can then be collected by a process called apheresis, a process used as standard-of-care in blood donations. The authors postulate that G-CSF mobilization could become a novel strategy to obtain human pluripotent stem cells, which are stem cells that have the potential to regenerate all the cell types of the body. NeoStem is funding research at the University of Louisville to optimally harvest these cells and prove their ability as an advanced form of Regenerative Medicine to aid in the repair of degenerative, damaged or diseased tissue. NeoStem has developed processes to harvest and cryopreserve these very small embryonic-like stem cells from individual patients for future medical use. Very small embryonic-like stem cells appear to have many of the properties of embryonic stem cells without the negative properties. In addition, since these adult stem cells are collected for the patient's personal use, they overcome two major limitations in the development of stem cell therapies today - the ethical considerations regarding use of embryonic stem cells and the immunological and infectious disease problems associated with using cells from a third-party donor. Recently NeoStem, Inc. was awarded under NIAMD of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a grant to study the repair of bone defects by human stem cells. This award will fund studies to investigate the potential of very small embryonic-like stem cells to form bone in an animal model and regenerate bone.