Using Stem Cells and HCA to Discover Drugs.

San Francisco — Fairmont Hotel January 10, 2013.  While taking a break from my reportage of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference and the Biotech Showcase 2013, it came to my attention that I should checkout the CHI meeting at the Fairmont Hotel.  Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s High-Content Analysis meeting was winding down its meeting so I was able to briefly see the exhibits and see a few minutes of a session about HCA in stem cells.

Mark Mercola , PhD. gave a talk called HCS to Discover Drugs for Heart Failure.  Dr. Mercola is Director, Muscle Development and Regeneration Program Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute

Mercola talked was about studying cardiomyocytes with instrument based iPS disease models.  He used the KIC (kinetic imagery cytometry) instrument from VALA Sciences, Inc. to run his disease-in-a-dish screening assay that put iPS cells in dishes to then analyze and identify miRNAs that target heart failure.  His goal is to try to restore the calcium channel in heart failure.

He said that miRNA are efficient to target multiple proteins. He noted that this process to discover a drug is better than with direct targeting.  Dr. Mercola said that he developed a target sensor screen. He looked at 900 miRNA and picked the eGFP miRNA.  He picked the conserved human miRNA and used the best ten.  He checked each sample with the KIC instrument. Mercola created an anti-mir to target miRNA in cardiomyocytes. The in vitro experiments helped identify the in-vitro move to in-vivo.  He simulated heart failure by squeezing the rat aorta to create heart failure over next 3 months.  He said that the increased pressure in the heart leads to fibrosis.

After the talk. I spoke with several exhibitors including Eugene Cho from VALA Sciences, Inc.  The  CHI meeting had about 300 attendees.

iPhone 5 More Powerful than the Curiosity Mars Rover

SAN FRANCISCO (Takeda Pacific HighTech Reports), Moscone West, January 30, 2013 — MacWorld/iWorld 2013.  NASA experts spoke about NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover and its connection to Apple products at a meeting here.  The session was titled “Software, Hardware, and Flying to Mars. How We Built, Programmed and Operate NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover.”  David Oh, Lead Flight Director and Software Engineer at JPL/Caltech Mars Science Lab, asked the question, “Why are we at MacWorld?”  The answer was shown in a slide of the NASA control room at the JPL in Pasadena, California.  On the desk was a mixture of Apple products such as MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPads during the Rover’s Mars landing.  The Macs were running Mac OS X.

Ben Cichy, Chief Flight Software Engineer, compared the processing power of the iPhone 5 to Curiosity’s processing power.  The iPhone 5 has 1.3 GHz and the Curiosity has only 132 MHz.  In addition, the iPhone 5 has 1GB of memory and 64GB of storage and the Rover has 128MB of memory and 4GB of storage.  The cost of an iPhone 5 is $399 while the cost of the Curiosity was $1.8 billion.

During the session, the audience was shown a video of the landing of the Curiosity on Mars.  It only took 7 minutes, but a very tense 7 minutes.  It was very exciting watching the landing of the Mars Rover all over again.  “The Rover’s goal is to explore and see if Mars ever sustained life or is now,” Ben said.

David showed a slide that described the different parts that make up the Rover.  He added that the heart of the mission is the SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars).  The SAM analyzes the chemical and isotopic composition of the planet’s atmosphere and surface.  He said that the “Curiosity has two brains (computers) in its belly.  One is the primary computer and the other is the backup.”  This time social media plays a big part in providing people access to seeing what is happening with the Curiosity as it explores the surface of Mars.  The Curiosity has its own Facebook page and iPhone app.

ImmunoCellular Therapeutics Presented at Biotech Showcase 2013

SAN FRANCISCO, January 9, 2013 – Biotech Showcase 2013, at the Parc 55 Wyndham Union Square Hotel, offered many opportunities for small and medium-sized biotech public or private firms the opportunity present their information to potential investors or partners.  I watched presentations from several companies.  The following summary highlights the activities of ImmunoCellular Therapeutics.

Director of Business Development and former scientist, Peter Ho talked about his firm, ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Ltd. (IMUC:NYSE Amex). Peter said that the company’s technology is a next generation cancer immunotherapy that combines targeting of cancer stem cells (CSCs) with strong immunotherapy to effectively eradicate cancer cells. He said that their technology overcomes the failures of previous cancer vaccines. By killing CSCs, the cancer cells will not grow back.  Ho said that T cells kill cancer cells, have high specificity, targets several antigens, offers a level of safety and can distinguish between cancer stem cells and normal stem cells.

He discussed the product pipeline and clinical development status.  Peter said that the company is creating immunotherapies that treat multiple cancer indications.  The firm has three near term immunotherapies including ICT-107 (GBM), ICT-140 (Ovarian), and ICT-121 (recurrant GBM and CD133 marker).

Peter said that ICT-107 is a dendritic cell vaccine used against glioblastoma (GBM) antigens and CSCs (brain cancer).  This product is in a Phase 2 study with results planned for late 2013.  He said that ICT-140 targets ovarian cancer antigens and CSCs.  The firm did an IND filing in Q4/2012.  Their ICT-121 is a dendritic cell vaccine initially for recurrent GBM and targets the CD133 biomarker.  He said that the CD133 biomarker is a common biomarker in several cancers including brain, NSCLC, melanoma, pancreatic and breast cancer. The IND is approved and clinical enrollment started in 4Q/2012.

Peter said that their lead product candidate, ICT-107, has a significantly lower cost of goods (COGs) advantage over Dendreon’s Provenge. ICT-107 is 5-10% of COGs vs. Provenge 70% of COGs.

He concluded his talk by saying that the company has 28 patents, has an experienced management team, and raised $20 million in October 2012.  The firm recently hired Andrew Gengos as the new CEO in December 2012 to lead their commercialization efforts. ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Ltd. is based in Woodland Hills, California.