bone marrow transplant, is used with most patients. Although the highest percentage of patients receiving transplants are diagnosed with multiple myeloma, patients with other hematologic cancers as well as some solid organ tumors also receive transplants.
Founded by Bart Barlogie, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy was part of the cancer center from the beginning. Barlogie, professor of medicine and pathology at UAMS and director of the Myeloma Institute, pioneered the use of tandem peripheral stem cell transplant for multiple myeloma. The first stem cell transplant to treat myeloma, a cancer of the blood’s plasma, at UAMS was conducted in 1989. In 2014, the Myeloma Institute is the largest center in the world devoted exclusively to clinical care for and research in multiple myeloma. More than 10,000 patients from every state in the United States and more than 50 foreign countries have received treatment at the institute, and more than 9,000 have received peripheral blood stem cell transplants. Barlogie has successfully secured National Cancer Institute funding for his translational research program project, Growth Control of Multiple Myeloma, for 20 consecutive years.
Arkansas Research Alliance
In 2007, the state legislature appropriated funds and the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority authorized the Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) as a public–private partnership to invest in innovative research that also strengthened economic opportunity. In 2009, ARA began operating. The brainchild of Accelerate Arkansas, a private, volunteer network of state business leaders focused on promoting knowledge-based job growth, the ARA board includes some of Arkansas’s most prominent business leaders. To stimulate the desired commercially viable research, ARA instituted the ARA Scholars program. ARA recruits two scientists each year whose expertise falls within the strategic focus areas that hold the promise of commercialization. In 2014, ARA Scholars’ research projects included drug development, stem cell research, and cutting-edge membrane technology and purification processes.
One of the inaugural ARA Scholars is Daohong Zhou, an expert in cancer and stem cell research. Holder of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Endowed Chair for Leukemia Research and the associate director for basic research at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Zhou focuses on radiation- and chemotherapy-induced stem cell injury as well as leukemia. He is also interested in novel strategies to promote ex vivo expansion of human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for transplantation. Zhou and fellow researchers founded the Arkansas Stem Cell Coalition in 2010 as a forum for developing collaborative and multidisciplinary research teams and as a means of fostering support for stem cell research from state and federal agencies and institutions and from the general public. The group also organized the Arkansas Conference on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine in 2012 and 2013.
Wylene Rholetter
Auburn University
See Also: Blood Adult Stem Cell: Major Pathologies; Stem Cell Banking.
Further Readings
Carter, Mark. “State Hoping ARA Scholars Program Leads to Jobs.” Arkansas Business (August 22, 2011). http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/33724/state-hoping-ara-scholars-program-leads-to-jobs (Accessed May 2014).
Griggs, Ted. “Stem Cell Bill Boosts Cancer Treatment, Research.” Medical News of Arkansas (May 2007). http://www.arkansasmedicalnews.com/stem-cell-bill-boosts-cancer-treatment-research-cms-496 (Accessed May 2014).
Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, Arkansas University for Medical Sciences. http://myeloma.uams.edu (Accessed May 2014).
Athersys
Athersys
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Athersys
The promise of stem cell research is being realized by biotechnology companies bringing the discoveries of great scientists out of the academic world, into therapeutic development, and to the market where they can be delivered to patients in need. Athersys Incorporated (Athersys), based in Cleveland, Ohio, is one of these biotechnology companies. Considered a clinical-stage biotechnology company, Athersys is developing therapies created using adult stem cells isolated from bone marrow and other tissue sources. They refer to these stem cells as multipotent adult progenitor cells (MAPC), which can be expanded on a large scale following isolation from a donor. Athersys’s current programs are based in part on the proprietary product under the registered trademark name MultiStem but also involve the use of their RAGE (Random Activation of Gene Expression) and other proprietary technologies used to identify various drug targets. These are described below.
History and Collaborations
Athersys was founded in October 1995 by Gil Van Bokkelen, PhD, and John Harrington, PhD, both who, as of 2014, continue to lead the company as chief executive officer and as chief scientific officer, respectively. Both also serve as directors. Dr. Harrington was a leader in the development of the proprietary RAGE technology. Described further below, RAGE is a novel gene activation approach that has applications in gene discovery, drug discovery, and commercial protein production, and has been in the demand of several other companies for use since its development. In 1997, Harrington helped Athersys create the first synthetic human chromosome. He now oversees process development, manufacturing, and clinical development.
In 2000, Athersys filed for initial public offering (IPO) with the goal of raising $115 million, as a functional genomics company. However, the proposed IPO was withdrawn six months later and instead went public in 2007 via a reverse-merger (or reverse IPO), with $65 million of funding coming from private companies Radius Venture, OrbiMed Advisors, RA Capital Management, Accipiter Capital Management, Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management, MPM BioEquities, and Pappas Ventures. The company now trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol ATHX.
In 2002, the two founders were the recipients of Ernst & Young LLP’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Biotech. The self-described “supersonic” projection of Athersys in 2002 continued through 2007, when the company advanced commercial collaborations with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, representing success in applications of its technologies to pharmaceutical/drug applications. Athersys continues today as a biotechnology and regenerative medicine company whose primary activities are the discovery and development of therapeutic product candidates. As such, the company forms collaborations with other larger companies to take promising product candidates further to commercialization. Bristol-Myers Squibb primarily benefited from its multiyear collaboration with Athersys with RAGE technology, providing multiple successful drug targets in a variety of therapeutic areas, which have become active drug development programs at Bristol-Myers Squibb. On the other hand, the collaboration between Athersys and Angiotech is more narrowly focused per the interests of Angiotech, with Athersys providing multiple animal studies that demonstrate the safe delivery of MultiStem via cardiac catheter and the provision with such delivery, of functional benefit in models of acute myocardial infarction. Further details of RAGE and MultiStem follow.
Athersys was a founding partner of the National Center for Regenerative Medicine at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in 2003, along with CWRU, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, and The Ohio State University. The center focuses efforts on nonembryonic stem cell research with applications in heart disease, cancer, genetic disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. In 2011, researchers collaborating from CWRU and Athersys published a study that demonstrated the regenerative potential of MultiStem in treating spinal cord injury. Several FDA investigational new drug (IND)–approved clinical trials have taken place at the center, along with an annual mesenchymal stem cell conference that began in 2007. In August 2014, the center presented an inaugural cancer stem cell conference