Ocata Therapeutics Inc fka OCAT

[rumit]

Man, I was looking for something like this all day yesterday.

"In this proposal, based on our recent "proof-of-concept" results, we hypothesize that hiPS cells suitable for clinical translation can be generated by direct delivery of reprogramming proteins attached to a cell penetrating peptide. In particular, we will generate fully reprogrammed hiPS cell lines from both healthy and O(-) subjects by direct protein delivery and test whether these cells can be propagated and expanded in vitro indefinitely, thus providing a potentially inexhaustible and donor-less source of blood lineage cells. This proposal will fully optimize the protein reprogramming methods to establish a highly efficient and safe way of reprogramming human tissues without genetic manipulation, and will address whether these hiPS cells can be used as a personalized platelet source and/or universal RBC source."

Very cool. No way are we filing an IND for synthetic blood, from iPS cells, anytime soon.

Rocky, going back to a discussion we had maybe a month ago:

While this program using iPS cells is fantastic, do you think Lanza/ACT might have progressed further with this program behind closed doors using hESC? If they hope to be able to create blood from iPS cell, surely it would be easier to do with hESC first. They always say that hESC is the gold standard.

EDIT: Maybe I am just clutching at straws here, hoping that we are further along than we really are.