iPierian to Present Data from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Program at ISSCR 8th Annual Meeting

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., June 15 /PRNewswire/ -- iPierian, Inc., the leading biopharmaceutical company focused on creating new therapeutics using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), today announced that it will present data from its iPSC research programs at the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 8th Annual Meeting, June 16-19, 2010, in San Francisco, CA.  

Data presented in a poster entitled, Discovery of disease gene expression signature in cells derived from Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) patients, demonstrate that reprogrammed iPSC lines derived from SMA patients retain a "memory" of the gene expression profile of their parental cells. The relatively low variability of iPSC lines derived from individual patients also suggests that a single iPSC line is sufficient to represent a specific patient in disease modeling experiments.

"This study demonstrates that an epigenetic profile of a patient is retained in reprogrammed cells, which enables the study of patient-specific disease in an in-vitro environment," said Dr. Michael Venuti, president and chief scientific officer of iPierian. "iPSCs offer the potential to study certain conditions in disease-specific human model systems for the first time, and we believe our iPS cell technology will ultimately lead to more effective, targeted therapies for patients worldwide."

The schedule of presentations from iPierian's iPSC program is as follows: 

About iPierian

iPierian is the leading biopharmaceutical company focused on the industrialization of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, using cellular reprogramming and directed differentiation of patient cells for the discovery and development of new therapeutics.  iPierian's approach places the patient at the forefront of the drug discovery process in order to reduce drug development time and increase the probability of success for drug candidates by using precise human disease models to develop proprietary small molecule or biologic therapeutics. The initial proprietary therapeutic focus of the company is neurodegeneration, particularly spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease, in addition to a broad therapeutic area program intended for partnering in metabolic disease.  

The company's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is comprised of leading researchers and authorities in the stem cell field, including individual investigators from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, The Gladstone Institute and The University of California, San Francisco.  Our scientific founders are Deepak Srivastava, M.D., (Gladstone Institute/UCSF), George Q. Daley, M.D., Ph.D., Douglas A. Melton, Ph.D., and Lee L. Rubin, Ph.D. (Harvard Stem Cell Institute).

iPierian is located in South San Francisco, California.  For more information, please visit www.ipierian.com.

SOURCE iPierian, Inc.