4 replies to this topic

[Lebombo]

Robert Lanza

 

 

“Robert Lanza is the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in the movie “Good Will Hunting.” Growing up underprivileged in Stoughton, Mass., south of Boston, the young preteen caught the attention of Harvard Medical School researchers when he showed up on the university steps having successfully altered the genetics of chickens in his basement. Over the next decade, he was “discovered” and taken under the wing of scientific giants such as psychologist B.F. Skinner, immunologist Jonas Salk, and heart transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard. His mentors described him as a “genius,” a “renegade thinker,” even likening him to Einstein.” – U.S.News & World Report, cover story

 

 

 

Dr. Robert Lanza joined the company in 1999 and has over 30 years of research and industrial experience in the area of stem cells and regenerative medicine. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He has several hundred publications and inventions, and over 30 scientific books: among them, “Essentials of Stem Cell Biology” and “Principles of Tissue Engineering” which are recognized as the definitive references in the field. Others include “Principles of Regenerative Medicine” and “One World: The Health & Survival of the Human Species in the 21st Century” (as editor, with forewords by C. Everett Koop and former President Jimmy Carter).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Relevance:

 

“We’re really on the beginning of a new medical revolution. I think with new technologies — going in and using the stem cells that we were starting to develop — you could prolong lives to several hundred years,” said Lanza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of his successes was showing that it is feasible to generate functional oxygen-carrying red blood cells from human pluripotent stem cells. The blood cells were comparable to normal transfusable blood and could serve as a potentially inexhaustible source of “universal” blood. His team also discovered how to generate functional hemangioblasts — a population of “ambulance” cells — from hESCs. In animals, these cells quickly repaired vascular damage, cutting the death rate after a heart attack in half and restoring the blood flow to ischemic limbs that might otherwise have to be amputated.

 

- http://www.robertlanza.com/

 

 

This is a scalable process, and there's virtually no limit to the amount of blood you could produce, given the time and resources,'' Lanza said yesterday in a telephone interview from his office in Worcester, Massachusetts.   -  http://www.bloomberg...id=a4Kjbniwf3kE

 

 

"Back then I thought that there was probably a 50-50 chance that I was going to get knocked off because I was so visible," says the doctor. Then he leans back in his chair and laughs. Lanza likes to flirt with danger: "I said, okay, try to kill me -- I'm still going to do what I think is right."

In Lanza's case, doing what is "right" involves working with therapies based on human stem cells. The blind shall see again; the paralyzed shall walk again; the hemophiliac shall not bleed anymore. That may sound like something out of the Bible, but Lanza is no faith healer. In fact, the US business magazine Fortune called him "the standard-bearer for stem cell research."

 

 -  http://www.spiegel.d...s-a-892475.html

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Lanza's work strongly addresses one of the major classes of cellular/molecular damage.  How can we further support this researcher/scienist/pioneer?

 

 

 

 

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Edited by Lebombo, 09 September 2015 - 07:01 PM.

[niner]

Lanza is an amazing guy.  I'm not sure that he needs much support these days; he seems to be doing pretty well.  Maybe there are some undiscovered Lanzas out there who could really use the help.   It would be nice if we could get more people to be rational about things like using discarded embryos to help humankind, but I don't know how to do that.  It's a political problem, so I guess you need to support politicians who are rational. 

[Lebombo]

Hi niner, 

 

Thank you for your response.  It would definitely be nice to get more people to be rational in those terms, especially when the NIH is still, in 2015, not fully implementing Obama's 2009 executive order and, instead, playing semantics with the definition of an embryonic stem cell and refusing to provide an accurate redefinition in order to include all embryonic stem cell lines in their approval process.

 

In fact, scientists are still requesting clarifications from the NIH as to why they are stalling on approving the best, most potent, and proliferative cell lines.   

 

 

Back in 2009:

 

Obama issued an executive order in March repealing that policy and ordering the NIH to adopt guidelines for the creation of new stem cell lines and their use.

"I am happy to say that we now have human embryonic stem cell lines eligible for use by our research community under our new stem cell policy," said NIH Director Francis Collins. "In accordance with the guidelines, these stem cell lines were derived from embryos that were donated under ethically sound informed consent processes. More lines are under review now, and we anticipate continuing to expand this list of responsibly derived lines eligible for NIH funding."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2...ml?iref=24hours

 

 

 

Everything seems fine now since 309 cell lines are approved, except that it is 2015 and the most robust set of embryonic stem cell lines are still not approved by the NIH for funding.  Those stem cell lines are Robert Lanza’s.  They are known to be the most ethically derived cell lines and are the most potent and proliferative.  They are derived the same way cells are removed from the blastocyst (even before the embryonic stage) during routine P.G.D. testing during IVF.  The cell lines are appropriately called NED lines (Non Embryo Destruction lines)

 

Why is the NIH seemingly blocking Robert Lanza (who has the expertise to expedite the science and research from the lab to the clinic)?  It is supposed to be about the patients, but with the NIH, is it about the patients or something else? Is it someone's Religious Ideology? Job security? Career legacy protection?  It would be nice to get some clarification from the NIH as to why they will not approve the best of the cell lines and why they are knowingly stifling progress and violating Obama's executive order. 

 

 

Lebombo

 

 

Edited by Lebombo, 10 September 2015 - 06:58 AM.

[Lebombo]

 

In the only FDA-approved clinical Trial using embryonic stem cells, Robert Lanza's team improved a man's vision 10 lines, from legally blind at 20/400 to 20/40.  And this was at very low Phase 1 dosage intended only to test for safety, not yet even specifically for observing visual improvement.  Phase 2 of the clinical trial with higher dosages is beginning to enroll now and will focus on efficacy as well as safety. 

 

 

Stem Cells Help Nearly Blind See

CNN

 

"We treated a 75-year-old horse rancher whose vision was 20/400, which is legally blind, and one month after treatment, his vision had improved 10 lines, which is 20/40 -- and he can even ride his horses again," Lanza said. "Other patients report similarly dramatic improvements. It's made a huge difference in the quality of their life."

 

Lanza says this is only the beginning. "These cells can be used to treat a wide range of human diseases caused by tissue loss or dysfunction."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2...ells-blind-see/

 

 

 

Yet, the NIH will not recognize the most advanced stem cell therapy as valid for NIH funding (even though it is THE ONLY FDA approved embryonic stem cell therapy) that has already proven safety in phase 1 clinical trials.  Some believe that somewhere within the NIH, someone doesn't want embryonic stem cell therapy to succeed.   

[Lebombo]

Niner, Lanza is not doing so great these days.  He is on the verge having all this science ripped right out from his possession due his newly appointed CEO making a rush decision to allow Ocata to be acquired by a Japanese company, Astellas. 

Say goodbye to the future of the cell therapy industry.

Edited by Lebombo, 18 December 2015 - 11:25 PM.