Today, cellular therapy leader NeoStem announced that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded the company the second year of a two-year grant for “Development of Human, Autologous, Pluripotent Very Small Embryonic Like (VSELs) Stem Cells as a Countermeasure to Radiation Threat,” Grant Number 5R43AI098325-02. The two-year grant will total $595,252.
A peer-reviewed grant, the grant was given in support of research to be headed by NeoStem Director of Stem Cell Science Denis O. Rodgerson, Ph.D., and Mariusz Ratajczak, M.D., Ph.D., who is head of the stem cell biology program at the University of Louisville’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center and the co-inventor of VSELTM Technology.
The award will fund studies investigating the potential of very small, embryonic-like stem cells as a countermeasure for radiological and nuclear threat. The product candidate, an autologous stem cell therapy derived from a patient’s own stem cells, will be developed both as a rescue measure for patients who have been exposed to radiation through nuclear accident or terrorist threat and as a treatment for cancer patients who have undergone radiation therapy and have resultantly compromised immune systems.
Persons exposed to high doses of radiation, either through cancer treatment or nuclear exposure, have compromised immune systems that make them much more vulnerable to the virulence and infectivity of biological agents. Following radiation exposure, death can occur within one to six weeks. A rescue through stem cell transplantation is currently the only intervention that can save a fatally irradiated person. VSELs may represent an ideal cell therapy for regenerating the body’s immune system and repairing other tissues damaged by exposure to radiation, as early studies have shown that VSELs are resistant to lethal radiation, which destroys other immune system-restoring stem cells in the body. This makes post-exposure autologous treatment possible.
The grant award consisted of $295,252 for the first year of the project and now includes an additional $300,000 for the second year.
“We are very pleased that our research has met its interim requirements and been awarded its second year of funding,” said Dr. Dennis O. Rodgerson.
“NeoStem is pleased that the NIAID is continuing to fund this cutting-edge technology that we hope will reinvent the treatment landscape for acute radiation syndrome,” added NeoStem Chairman and CEO Dr. Robin L. Smith. “We also expect to file an IND with the FDA in late 2013 or early 2014 to initiate a NIH-funded human clinical study treating periodontitis with VSELTM.”
For more information about NeoStem, visit www.neostem.com
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