Aethlon Medical Establishes Extracorporeal Therapy Scientific Advisory Board

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Aethlon Medical, Inc. (OTCBB: AEMD), the pioneer in developing selective therapeutic filtration devices to address infectious disease, cancer and other life-threatening conditions, announced today that it has established an Extracorporeal Therapy Scientific Advisory Board to guide the advancement of the Aethlon Hemopurifier® and other therapies developed from the Aethlon ADAPT™ system.  Aethlon recently established a Scientific Advisory Board specific to Sepsis & Inflammation and during the course of 2012 expects to establish Science Advisory Boards comprised of thought leaders from the infectious disease and cancer community as well.  Initial members of the Aethlon Extracorporeal Therapy Scientific Advisory Board include John Kellum, M.D., Gregory T. A. Kovacs, M.D., Ph.D., Nathan Levin, M.D., Hans Dietrich Polaschegg, Ph.D., Claudio Ronco, M.D., and David Ward, M.D.

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"We are truly honored to have this esteemed group of industry thought leaders agree to provide their scientific insight to our therapeutic endeavors," stated Aethlon Chairman and CEO, Jim Joyce.

About Dr. Kellum

Dr. Kellum is a tenured professor of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.  He is a clinician scientist whose research interests span various aspects of Critical Care Medicine, but center in critical care nephrology (including acid-base, and renal replacement therapy), sepsis and multi-organ failure (including blood purification), and clinical epidemiology.  His research has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health since 2001 and he has active funding from multiple different NIH Institutes.  Dr. Kellum has authored more than 300 publications and has also edited several major textbooks including Critical Care Nephrology 2nd Edition (WB Saunders), and Stewart's Textbook of Acid-Base, 2nd Edition (www.acidbase.org). He has won several teaching awards, lectures widely, and has given more than 300 seminars and invited lectures related to his research.  Dr. Kellum has been involved in the development of several clinical practice guidelines.  He is a founding member and past president of the Acute Dialysis Quality Initiative (www.ADQI.net) and is co-chair of the Kidney Diseases Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) clinical practice guideline on acute kidney injury (www.kdigo.org). Finally Dr. Kellum is a leader in electronic research especially in critical illness and is the Director of CARe (Center for Assistance in Research using the eRecord) also at the University of Pittsburgh.

About Dr. Kovacs

Dr. Kovacs is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Medicine.  He received a BASc degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, an MS degree in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. and an MD degree from Stanford University.  Dr. Kovacs is the Director of Medical Device Technologies for the Astrobionics Program at the NASA Ames Research Center, and Principal Investigator for the NASA/Stanford National Center for Space Biological Technologies.  This Center is charged with developing advanced medical devices to enable extended human spaceflight and instrumentation/payloads for biological experiments.  Dr. Kovacs also has extensive industry experience including co-founding and providing technical guidance for several companies, including Cepheid in Sunnyvale, CA, supplier of advanced instrumentation for clinical and research nucleic acid diagnostics.  Through Northrup Grumman, Cepheid supplies the automated biothreat detection systems in use by the United States Postal Service.  He is a long-standing member of the Defense Sciences Research Council (DARPA), and has served as Associate Chair and Chairman. In this capacity, he has led or co-led studies on a variety of topics from chemical and biological agent detection and decontamination, miniaturized biological instrumentation, jungle warfare technologies, and many others.  Between 2008 and 2011, Dr. Kovacs was on leave from Stanford University to serve as director of the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA.

About Dr. Levin

Dr. Levin is the Chairman, Research Board of the Renal Research Institute and Professor of Clinical Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  Past Medical and Research Director, Renal Research Institute (1997-2010).  Dr. Levin is the Chair of the Selection Committee for the Lillian Jean Kaplan International Prize for Advancement in the Understanding of Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). He is the Co-Founder of Sustainable Kidney Care Foundation.  Dr. Levin is an advisor to the Board of KidneyTel.  He has lectured nationally and internationally on topics relating to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and hemodialysis. He is the Principal Investigator of the NIH sponsored study of Frequent Dialysis.  Dr. Levin is on the Medical Advisory Panel at Fresenius Healthcare Partners and is currently an adjunct Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is the Honorary Chair, Peking University, in Beijing, China.  Dr. Levin contributes to the global CKD community in a variety of functions.

About Dr. Polaschegg

Dr. Polaschegg is an internationally respected scientist and authority on medical devices for renal care.  He serves as a Medical Devices Consultant to several organizations in that field.  He is best known as the Architect of the dialysis equipment for industry leader Fresenius AG.  Dr. Polaschegg served as Head of Research and Development of Medical Systems Division of Fresenius AG from 1979 to 1994.  He is a member of several international American and European standard committees including Chairman of the Extracorporeal Circulation and Infusion and Technology Committee.  He is also the author or co-author of over 100 patents and 84 publications, and a member of over a dozen biomedical and engineering societies.  Dr. Polaschegg holds a Bachelor's diploma and a Ph.D. in Technical Physics from the Technical University of Vienna in Austria.

About Dr. Ronco

Dr. Ronco is the Director of the Department of Nephrology at St. Bortolo Hospital in Vicenza.  He is a member of the council of several scientific societies and is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Artificial Organs.  He has received numerous awards and honors, including the International Medal of Excellence from the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and honorary membership of the Spanish Society of Nephrology (SSN).  Dr. Ronco has organized several congresses and meetings in the area of nephrology and intensive care and is a member of several advisory groups for clinical trials and dialysis research.  He has co-authored over 650 papers, 36 book chapters, 45 books and seven monographic journal issues, and has delivered more than 450 lectures at international meetings and universities.  In 1989, Dr. Ronco was awarded his diploma in pediatric nephrology at the University of Naples, having achieved a specialized diploma in medical nephrology at the Post-graduate School of Internal Medicine at the University of Padua in 1979.  He graduated in medicine from the University of Padua, having been an intern at the Institute of Clinical Internal Medicine at the same institution.

About Dr. Ward

Dr. Ward trained in nephrology in Scotland and did a second fellowship in renal immunopathology at Scripps Research Foundation.  Since 1977 he has been a member of the Division of Nephrology at UCSD. He directed the dialysis unit and clinical nephrology program at UCSD for 19 years, and has directed the therapeutic apheresis program for the last 22 years.  At different times he has served the UCSD Medical School as Assistant Dean for Clinical Affairs, Chief of Staff of the Hospital, and Chairman of the UCSD Medical Group. Special interests include immunological diseases, glomerular diseases, transplantation medicine, apheresis medicine, hemodialysis technology, innovative extracorporeal blood circuits, and general clinical nephrology. He practices, publishes and teaches in these areas, including authoring chapters in standard textbooks such as "Rheumatology" and "Clinical Dialysis."

About Aethlon Medical

The Aethlon Medical mission is to create innovative medical devices that address unmet medical needs in cancer, infectious disease, and other life-threatening conditions. Our Aethlon ADAPT™ System is a revenue-stage technology platform that provides the basis for a new class of therapeutics that target the selective removal of disease enabling particles from the entire circulatory system. The Aethlon ADAPT™ product pipeline includes the Aethlon Hemopurifier® to address infectious disease and cancer; HER2osome™ to target HER2+ breast cancer, and a medical device being developed under a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that would reduce the incidence of sepsis in combat-injured soldiers and civilians. For more information, please visit www.aethlonmedical.com.

Certain of the statements herein may be forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements involve assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Aethlon Medical, Inc. to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such potential risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the ability for the Company to derive business partnerships or future revenue streams using the Aethlon ADAPT™ system including the ability to introduce a targeted breast cancer therapy known as HER2osome™, there is no assurance that FDA will approve the initiation of the company's clinical programs or provide market clearance of the company's products, the ability to achieve the goals set out in the DARPA contract, future human studies of the Aethlon Hemopurifier® as an adjunct therapy to improve patient responsiveness to established cancer therapies, the company's ability to raise capital when needed, the Company's ability to complete the development of its planned products, the Company's ability to manufacture its products either internally or through outside companies and provide its services, the impact of government regulations, patent protection on the Company's proprietary technology, product liability exposure, uncertainty of market acceptance, competition, technological change, and other risk factors. In such instances, actual results could differ materially as a result of a variety of factors, including the risks associated with the effect of changing economic conditions and other risk factors detailed in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Contacts:

James A. Joyce
Chairman and CEO
858.459.7800 x301
[email protected]

Jim Frakes
Chief Financial Officer
858.459.7800 x300
[email protected]

John P. Salvador
Director, Communications
858.459.7800 x307
[email protected]

SOURCE Aethlon Medical, Inc.