cc  >> Hello, and welcome.  I'm Margaret Lewis,  the executive director of the  Wisconsin Academy of Sciences  Arts and Letters.  And I'm just really delighted to  welcome you with our partner,  the Wisconsin Alumni Research  Foundation tonight, to our  second day of examining a decade  of stem cell research.  This is, tonight, focusing on  the commercialization of stem  cell research, which we'll have  a presentation shortly by  California's Michael West, from  BioTime Corporation, who will  give us a little, I think  excitement about the  possibilities here of  opportunities for  commercializing stem cell  research in our rather dark  economy.  But first, let me tell you  a little bit about the Wisconsin  Academy, who we are, and why  we've joined with the Wisconsin  Alumni Research Foundation  in hosting this event.  The non-profit Wisconsin Academy  of Sciences, Arts and Letters  was founded in 1870 to connect  people and ideas for a better  Wisconsin.  It connects people from all  walks of life, in all areas of  knowledge, to advance thought  and culture in our state.  We hope to assist in developing  a community of the mind that can  address the state challenges  from a position of knowledge,  instead of one of fear or  ignorance.  In short, we hope to connect  people and ideas for a better  Wisconsin.  And you can learn more about or  programs by becoming a member. 

 And if you just check out our  Web site at:  www.Wisconsin.org  you can learn about many of  these programs.  Now, before I introduce our  program, it's my pleasure to  thank our sponsors who have made  this event possible.  Our co-hosts, the Wisconsin  Alumni Research Foundation, the  UW-Madison Chancellor's Office,  and the UW Wisconsin Idea  Project, the Pleasant T. Rowland  Foundation, the Evjue  Foundation, M&I Bank, the  accounting firm of RSM McGadry,  Promega, Quarles and Brady Law  Firm, the Wisconsin Alumni  Association, and many members  and donors, and our Wisconsin  Academy Council members.  So thank you so much for helping  make these free programs to the  public available.  We'd also like to thank our  media partners, Channel 3 TV,  who has helped tape both of our  governors, who had to be out of  town at the last minute, Cable  Channel 12, Wisconsin Eye, and  Wisconsin Public Television, who  helped make these programs  available around the state.  Now what I'd like to do is  introduce to you Mark Bugher.  Mark Bugher is director of the  University of Wisconsin Research  Park.  And prior to his work as  Research Park Director, Mark was  appointed by Governor Tommy  Thompson to serve both as  Secretary of the Department of  Administration, and prior to  that, Secretary of Revenue.  He reminded me earlier tonight  that tomorrow is when revenue  projections are due.  Since leaving state government,  Mark has been appointed to a  number of Governor's Blue Ribbon  Commissions, and serves on many  boards and chairs many boards,  including the Wisconsin  Technology Council, the  Marshfield Clinic Advisory  Board. 

 He chairs the Madison Chamber of  Commerce board, First Business  Financial Services Board, the  Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance  Board, the Vilas Trust.  And he formerly chaired the  Madison Economic Development  Commission.  So please help me welcome Mark  Bugher.  He'll give us some context.  (applause)  >> Well, good evening, everyone.  It's great to be here.  I certainly appreciate the  introduction.  I also want to applaud the  Academy and WARF for their  willingness to extend and focus  on this extraordinary  celebration of the ten-year  anniversary of the discovery of  the embryonic stem cell lines.  It's hard to believe, from my  perspective, that it's been ten  years.  It's gone by so quickly. 

 But Margaret asked me to come  tonight and to participate in  the introduction of my old boss,  Governor Tommy Thompson.  And it's my pleasure to do that.  As Margaret indicated in the  introduction, I worked for the  governor for about 13 years.  And we had a whole array of  wonderful policy discussions and  initiatives and challenges  together over the course of that  14 years.  Clearly, one of those very  interesting policy challenges  and discussions and debates was  related to the topic of  tonight's presentation,  embryonic stem cells.  Governor Thompson's support of  this initiative, in many ways,  is really a case study.  I think you could call it a case  study of bipartisan  statesmanship, something that we  clearly need more of in today's  political environment.  After all, he was a republican,  viewed as a very conservative  republican legislator from the  central part of the state of  Wisconsin, an ardent Catholic,  and ended up, after spending an  extraordinary amount of time  doing due diligence and study of  the issue, being an  extraordinary supporter of  embryonic stem cells.  And that in and of itself is an  interesting case study and  story.  First and foremost, the governor  was a terrific supporter of the  university, which sort of lays  the foundation for much of his  support of the research that was  done by Dr. Jamie Thomson and  his colleagues. 

 UW programs, and UW building  programs, capital programs were  parts of his favorite areas of  the state budget, that he really  took an avid interest in.  And many of those programs are  sort of the legacy programs that  you still observe around the  campus today, the cranes that  are building some of the  buildings that were initially  the vision of Governor Thompson,  with the HealthStar initiative,  the BioStar initiative, the  Madison initiative.  All of those great programs  started back in the early and  mid-'90s and still maintain  their presence in the program of  UW-Madison today.  We would always say that when  the governor and then Chancellor  Donna Shalala would get in the  same room at the same time,  these two large personalities,  many, many big things would  happen.  And that was clearly the case of  many of the programs that found  their way into the state budget  related to the university and  its operation.  These faculty and staff members  that were working for the  university at that time, many of  those people are still around.  But they certainly knew that  Governor Thompson had an  extraordinarily curious mind  when it came to the science in  and around research.  And I think that some of us felt  like they took advantage of that  curious mind, because we had an  extraordinary number of field  trips down to the campus,  touring labs and touring  facilities, which ultimately led  to a pretty significant increase  in the infrastructure build-up  of our research and development  facilities on campus.  And I think in some ways, you  can point to some of that  infrastructure build-up as a  basis for some of the positive  things that have resulted in the  research program that the UW  experiences today.  All of this sort of led up to  the 1998 announcement, which I  remember vividly, and the  discovery of the embryonic stem  cells by Dr. Jamie Thomson and  his colleagues. 

 Governor Thompson would always  refer to Jamie Thomson as his  smarter cousin, which I thought  was always kind of funny.  But we had this huge reception  for Dr. Thomson at the executive  residence.  The governor announced his very  ardent public support for  Dr. Thomson's work.  And that, of course, elicited a  fair amount of push-back from  certain interest groups in the  state of Wisconsin, who have  traditionally aligned themselves  to republican party politics.  So the governor had to deal with  that feedback, if you will,  push-back, feedback, or  criticism of his position on the  support of embryonic stem cell  research.  And I remember him telling these  groups that he was a Catholic.  He understood the issues with  regard to his support for  embryonic stem cell research.  He was with them, about 98% of  the time, with respect to their  issues.  But on this issue, he was not  going to be with them.  And if that meant that he would  lose their support, so be it. 

 I thought that was quite a  courageous position for a  politician.  Again, something that we don't  see every day these days.  But I think the governor was  inspired by a couple of  different features of the  research.  First and foremost, he was  inspired by the promise of hope,  understanding that the research  was not going to deliver  remediation of disease  overnight, that this is a  long-term play.  But he certainly was motivated  by the potential for alleviation  of some of society's most  difficult and problematic  diseases.  And I think that was born, in  many ways, out of his own family  experiences with a father that  died very young of heart  disease; a mother that died very  young of breast cancer; a wife  that had breast cancer; a  daughter, at age 31, that had  breast cancer.  I think all of those fed into  his view of what embryonic stem  cell research really meant to  the public, and why he was very  much in support.  He also, I think, had probably  the best handle on the pulse of  the Wisconsin citizens, the best  handle of any politician that  I've observed in my lifetime.  He knew that most people, in  their families, have some family  member, some relation, some  person close to them that has  some terrible disease that can  be alleviated or at some point  cured with a commitment to  extraordinary research.  And I think that, in one way,  was one of the reasons why he  was so supportive. 

 He was also supportive, however,  because of the economic  development implications.  And those of you that know Tommy  Thompson, and were aware of his  administration and their  activities, knew that he was  very interested in economic  development and job creation.  And clearly, he saw this  research as a way to put  Wisconsin on the map, to have  Wisconsin distinguished among  all other places, and to have  this university be a focal point  for research all across the  world.  So he was very motivated by  that.  And I have, in my job, as the  director of the University  Research Park, seen the physical  manifestation of that action,  you know, sort of ten years  later, as we grow and continue  to thrive and expand in the  Research Park.  We currently have 115 companies  in the Park, employing 4,000  people, with an average salary  of $62,000 per year.  I think about five of those  companies are directly related  to stem cell research.  We also house the WiCell folks,  which are the owners of the stem  cell lines, a subsidiary of  WARF.  So this economic development  perspective was very important  to him, and I think, in many  ways, drives the ongoing legacy  of his support, ten years later.  And so, the governor had a great  feel for this issue. 

 And I think a great perspective.  I think he took a lot of that  passion to Washington, DC, when  he was appointed as Secretary of  Health and Human Services.  And I think this world, and this  state currently, would've been a  much different place and looked  differently from the perspective  of this research, had he not  gone into that role, and had a  persuasive impact on the  president of the United States.  So with that, I'm pleased to  introduced to you the former  governor of the state of  Wisconsin, former secretary of  HHS, Governor Tommy Thompson.  >> This is really an honor and a  privilege to be able to come in  front of this body and say such  wonderful things and is a  testimonial to an outstanding  great scientist, Jamie Thomson.  >> Tell us how you first met  Jamie.  >> I met Jamie after he  discovered the stem cells.  And we came up to the capitol  and I introduced him during my  State of the State speech.  And I was so thrilled, you know,  that Wisconsin was on the  cutting edge of something that  was going to be exciting, was  going to rejuvenate healthcare,  was going to transform  healthcare as we know it in  America, and more than likely,  the world.  >> Do you think it's done that?  >> Oh, I think it hasn't  completed its tremendous  successful career, by any means. 

 It's starting.  It's in the embryonic stages.  You know, stem cells, what Jamie  discovered, he always says, you  know, don't be impatient.  This is going to take ten, 15,  20, 30 years, to really fulfill  it's potential.  >> I have one last question.  How do you see; what role do you  think you played in this whole  evolution of stem cell?  >> I think I played quite a few  different roles.  I played a role when it first  came out in Wisconsin.  I played a big role in  Washington.  I'll never forget this, and I  haven't told this story.  I told it at the summit debate. 

 President George W. Bush  called me over before he made  his pronouncement on stem cells,  he wanted to learn about stem  cells.  And he took us into a little  room off of the so famous Oval  Office, and a different  administration.  We had lunch there.  I can still remember this.  It was just Carl Rove, the  president and myself.  He said, I want to learn about  stem cells.  And he said, Tommy, you're my  secretary, and you're for it.  Carl Rove, you're my political  advisor and you're opposed to  it.  For an hour and a half, Carl and  I debated on the merits and  demerits of embryonic stem  cells.  And Carl was coming at it from a  political angle. 

 And I was coming at it from a  scientific evaluation, one in  which it would help us go to the  next step in curing people.  Finally at the end, we made our  closing arguments to the  president.  And I'll never forget my closing  argument.  I said the president,  Mr. President, you can double  the money for the National  Institutes for Health.  You can go out and you can put  more money into scientific  discoveries.  But if you stop the funding of  embryonic stem cells, you will  always be remembered as the  person that stopped science in  its tracks, as far as embryonic  stem cells.  He said, why do you say that?  And I said, Mr. President,  because every person in America  has either got a close member  of the family, and you had  a sister, Mr. President, that  died of one of these maladies.  And I said, every person in  America either has a member of  his or her family, or some close  friend that's suffering from a  malady that that person that's  suffering from the malady,  that's hoping that stem cells  will find a cure for.  And I said that is so powerful.  And if you have a young child  that has Type 1 Diabetes, or if  you have somebody suffering from  Parkinson or MS, their hope is  that the great scientists like  Jamie Thomson will discover a  cure. 

 That is so powerful, that if you  stop that, you take away that  opportunity for a cure for that  person, even though it's going  to take years for it, and maybe  that disease that that person  has will never find a cure of  have a replacement organ, or  replacement cell.  That opportunity, the  possibility and potential is so  powerful, that if you stop that,  you're always going to be  remembered for that.  He looked at me and said thank  you.  And I really believe that that  argument I gave was the final  convincing argument before  he made his announcement  on August 9.  >> Did you approve of that  announcement?  >> I thought it was very wise.  I mean, nobody liked it.  The people on the left didn't  like it.  The people on the right didn't  like it.  I always have been on the  position in government and  politics that you know, if you  have something that everybody's  mad at you for making a  decision, you may be right.  And so, since everybody was  criticizing the president, those  that were pro stem cell, those  that were against it, I had to  come to the conclusion that he  figured it out pretty well. 

 And to this day, you can make  the argument that he could've  gone further.  And I would've gone further if I  would've been in that position.  But I wasn't.  And I thought that from where he  started to where he ended up,  there was nice movement.  And it allowed us to continue to  develop the science and to  develop the research.  That is very promising.  This is really a wonderful  evening.  First, it's a wonderful evening  to pay tribute to the number one  scientist in this arena, Jamie  Thomson.  It wouldn't happen without him  and his leadership.  And number two, as Jamie says,  it takes time. 

 It's not going to happen over  night.  But the potential.  The potential for growing a new  heart.  The potential for allowing  somebody that has a spinal  disease, defect or something  that has paralyzed that  individual, and being able to  re-grow spinal tissue is  absolutely amazing.  Being able to come up with islet  cells in order to help cure Type  1 Diabetes.  One of these things is a billion  dollar discovery.  And all I'm telling the people  there, you know, work hard.  There are going to be some  errors.  There are going to be some  mistakes and a lot of failures.  But the potential success is  going to be huge for the person  that discovers it. 

 It's going to be huge for  medicine.  But it's also going to be huge  economically for the state, or  the country that's involved in  promoting it and perfecting it.  >> I think you can tell with the  comments of the governor, that  he certainly has passion for the  issue, and believes in the  issue.  And as I mentioned earlier, I  think this whole research  equation would've been much  different had he not been in  that position.  So we certainly thank him for  that role.  Next on the agenda this evening,  I am pleased to introduce one of  my great friends and colleagues  from the university, the  managing director of the  Wisconsin Alumni Research  Foundation, and a native of  Viroqua, Wisconsin, one of  Wisconsin's home grown heroes,  Carl Gulbrandson.  As many of you know, WARF is the  patent management organization  for UW-Madison.  Carl received his bachelor's  degree from St. Olaf College  in Northfield, Minnesota.  He received a PhD in physiology  from the University of  Wisconsin.  He also received a JD degree  from the University of Wisconsin  Law School, and was admitted to  practice patent law by an large,  is what his discipline has been. 

 From '81 through '92, he was in  the private practice of law.  He became general counsel for  Lunar Corporation and Bone Care  International, a pharmaceutical  company that was based here in  Madison.  Carl has been with WARF since  1997.  And prior to his current role as  managing director of WARF, he  was the director of Patenting  and Licensing.  He does truly an outstanding,  incredible job in managing this  very complex, difficult and  challenging organization, but  one that is so extraordinarily  important, not only to the topic  here tonight, but so much of the  other technology transfer  challenges and opportunities  that we have here at this  university.  So let's welcome  Carl Gulbrandson.  (applause)  >> Thank you, Mark.  I'm very privileged and pleased  to introduce Michael West, the  chief executive officer  of BioTime, Inc., and  Embryo Sciences, both companies  focusing on embryonic  stem cell technologies.  Michael is one of the  visionaries in the human  embryonic stem cell field.  He founded a corporation in  Menlo Park, California, in 1990,  as a cancer therapeutic company. 

 But he was quick to move into  the primate embryonic stem cell  area when Jamie Thomson  published his success at  isolating non-human, primate  embryonic stem cells.  In fact, it was only a matter of  days after Jamie published his  success that Mike showed up on  campus and offered Jamie funding  to isolate human embryonic stem  cells.  This was 1995, 22 years ago.  The federal government had  funded--  Was that 22 years ago?  Twelve years ago, I'm sorry.  Excuse me.  This is why I'm managing  director at WARF, and we're in  such terrible trouble right now.  So, 12 years ago.  The federal government had  funded the non-primate embryonic  stem cell work.  But the law prohibited the use  of federal funds to derive human  embryonic stem cells.  As Jamie told you last night,  his success with two non-human  primates, the Rhesus monkey and  the Marmoset monkey, which are  further apart genetically than  the Rhesus is from the human,  strongly suggested to him that  if he had the opportunity to  derive human embryonic stem  cells, he would succeed. 

 The university was not prepared  to fund such work.  And WARF was not asked.  Although, in 1995, I doubt that  if asked WARF would've provided  the funding.  But then Mike appeared at a  critical time.  Mike, through his company,  provided Jamie the necessary  funding.  So I'm grateful to Mike that he  had the foresight to take that  early chance with Jamie.  Otherwise, I don't think we  would be celebrating the  ten-year anniversary of human  embryonic stem cells in  Wisconsin.  Mike has continued to be a  visionary.  He has continued to work on  commercializing human embryonic  stem cell technology.  And he has continued to believe  in the science throughout the  stormy periods of political and  religious resistance. 

 He's also remained a friend to  WARF.  I believe the first time I met  Mike, it was when we testified  together in the United States  Senate before Senator Arlin  Specter.  I recall Mike telling the Senate  and the world that Jamie  Thomson, in successfully  culturing human embryonic stem  cells, had given the world a  great gift.  I always thought that was a  great way to look at what Jamie  had done.  And I agree with that sentiment.  Mike also was one of the few  people of his stature that had  reached out to me, personally,  when WARF's stem cell patents  were being attacked, both in the  press, and more recently, when  they were attacked in the patent  office through the  re-examination process.  Fortunately, WARF prevailed and  the patents were reaffirmed by  the patent office, but I've  always appreciated Mike's  support.  Mike received his PhD from  Baylor College of Medicine in  1989, concentrating on the  biology of cellular aging.  He's focused his academic and  commercial career on  developmental biology, as it  relates to age-related  degenerative diseases.  As I earlier stated, Mike  founded his company in 1990. 

 He then left the company in 1998  and moved to Boston to help  found Advanced Cell Technology,  where he was chief scientific  officer.  In 2007, Mike moved back to  California to found BioTime,  Inc.  I'm not certain whether he made  this move because of the  weather, or because there might  be money in California for stem  cell companies.  I'll let him explain that.  Along the way, in addition to  founding a number of important  companies, he's received many  patents.  He's published many papers.  He's authored a book on the stem  cell story.  He's advocated for stem cells,  and has given numerous  addresses.  I don't think there's anyone  who's in a better position to  talk about the ups and the  downs, the opportunities and the  challenges of commercializing  human embryonic stem cells than  Mike West.  So, Mike. 

 (applause)  >> Thank you, very much.  It's very nice to be back in  this part of the country.  I grew up not too far from here  in southwestern Michigan.  I still have family members here  in the Wisconsin area.  I appreciate very much the kind  words Carl, and the opportunity  to talk to you today.  So indeed, I wanted to talk to  you tonight about the  commercialization of this  technology, what we've been  through in the last ten years,  where we hope to take things in  the next ten, maybe 20 years.  And so I'll put some of this in  a historical context.  I am a scientist in addition to  being an entrepreneur.  So it's hard for me not to throw  in some science slides.  So if you see some graphs, or  some pictures of cells, please  don't panic. 

 Many of you I've talked to are  from the business world.  I don't want to give a science  talk tonight, but I do want to  put this technology in context.  We are a public company.  So I'm making a safe harbor  provision statement there.  I always have to.  Forgive me.  So let's start at the beginning.  The facts of life.  This picture was given to me by  my mentor, Dr. Sam Goldstein,  because both Sam and I were  interested in the biology of  aging.  That's where this story I'm  going to tell you tonight  begins. 

 It's also a nice photograph.  It's a picture of a daughter,  her mother, her mother's mother,  and her mother's mother's  mother, whatever it is.  Look at the bottom.  I've got a quote from an old  German naturalist who said maybe  the obvious, but it's still an  interesting statement.  Organic bodies are perishable.  I think we knew that.  While life maintains the  appearance of immortality, in  the constant succession of  similar individuals.  But the individuals themselves  pass away.  That's the cycle of life, right?  I began my career as a  gerontologist.  I still am. 

 I'm interested in the biology of  aging.  Why does this happen.  I felt that was a very profound  question, as did other  scientists in the past century.  And I copied this photograph out  of a book.  What is this?  Some of you remember high school  or college biology class, the  little pond water animals.  That's what these are.  On the left, is an organism, a  little animal that you'd see  that swims around with those  little flagelli.  What's interesting about this is  this little organism, the cells,  you can break them apart and  make a new little organism, and  do so forever.  And so a scientist said, that's  how life began, with these  little cells.  And he coined the term, or  applied it for the first time,  immortal. 

 He said these cells can  proliferate without limit.  There's no degenerative disease  and death.  But if you look at that related  organism on the right, a closely  related species, there are cells  that had specialized on the  outside, a shell.  And then cells on the inside  that perpetuated the organism.  So we had a break point, two  different kinds of cells now.  For the first time, cells that  make the body that die, and  cells that continue the species  in the germ line.  And he said that change was the  first time where you see the  evolution of programmed aging  and death.  Well, he was quite right.  He laid out the modern theory of  heredity.  He didn't know about DNA, of  course, but he knew there was  something in the germ line that  perpetuated the species, which  I'm showing you by this immortal  cells at the top. 

 And then of course over  evolutionary time, it evolved  into more and more complex  organism.  We still use the term somatic  cells, to apply to all of the  cells of the human body.  He made an amazing prediction.  he said, in 1891, that death  takes place in people because of  worn out tissue that cannot  forever renew itself.  And because the capacity of  cells for increase by means of  cell division is not  everlasting, but finite.  And what he meant was the cells  in you and me, as opposed to our  germ line, have some sort of a  clock built in.  He even speculated on how that  might work.  But because he didn't know about  DNA, he couldn't lay it out  precisely.  But there's some sort of a  timing mechanism, and cells in  our body proliferate, but can  only do so a certain number of  times.  And that sets the mortal  life span. 

 Well, two or three years before  he died, this photograph was  taken in New York City.  These two individuals, on the  right is Simon Flexner.  You notice, doctors wear white  lab coats, and he's wearing one.  He started it.  He was living in the era when  medicine wasn't as scientific as  it is today.  And he single handedly turned  the scientific community  to be scientists.  He said medicine needed to be  a scientific enterprise.  And to symbolize this, doctors  should wear white lab coats,  just like scientists do, because  medicine is a science.  And here, he's next to another  scientist, named Alexis Carrel.  Carrel was the first American  to receive the Nobel Prize. 

 And there they are in the  Rockefeller University.  Well, here is not al qaeda.  No, this is not scientists  making a biological weapon.  This is Alexis Carrel in the  background with his little white  cap.  And this is the beginning of the  cultures of cells.  These are some of the first  experiments done in the early  1900s in cell culture.  And Alexis Carrel led that work.  And what he convinced the world  of is the idea that Weismann was  wrong.  He said that cells in the human  body don't age.  And so however we age, it's  something else. 

 But if you take cells out of the  body, they'll proliferate  forever.  And there's no evidence at all  in cultured cells.  He was wrong.  Nevertheless, he influenced  people.  Because he believed that cells  from the human body could be  cultured outside of the body,  and evade aging, he went on an  ambitious campaign, and it was  the beginnings of this field we  call regenerative medicine.  He was photographed for Time, I  think it was around 1938.  You can see him with Charles  Lindbergh of all people.  Lindbergh, of course, would fly  in the first Transatlantic  flight, non-stop.  Lindbergh was fascinated by  Carrel's ambitious goals of  trying to profound the impact of  medicine through this idea of  regenerative medicine, and  invented for Carrel the pump you  can see on the right, which is  the first most-sophisticated  sort of heart-lung machine, to  support the growth of cells and  tissues, in particular, outside  of the human body.  So these are the very early  days. 

 They had very ambitious goals.  Carrel believed that these  technologies were so powerful  that they would initiate an era  where people didn't grow old and  die at all, in his lifetime.  Obviously, he was wildly off in  that regard.  But I think he deserves respect  for pioneering this field in  many ways, as evidenced by his  early Nobel Prize.  I suppose a lack of respect for  setting the field in the wrong  direction, saying that cells  don't age.  It wasn't until the 1960s that  Leonard Hayflick was culturing  human cells in a dish, and they  kept growing old.  They kept stopping after a  certain number of doublings.  And his colleagues tell me he  was in the lunchroom at an  institute in Philadelphia, and  one of his colleagues in jest  says, well, maybe your cells are  just growing old.  And Len said maybe.  And that started the whole field  of modern cellular gerontology. 

 He started studying why do cells  age in the dish.  And on the left, you can see  young and senescent cells.  That's when I entered the field.  I wanted to know, what is the  fundamental mechanism of  cellular aging.  Why is it that there are all  these genetic diseases of aging?  Maybe you've seen this.  It's a tragic story.  The little boy on the right is  only in his teenage years, and  will almost certainly die of a  heart attack, although he has  normal cholesterol, because of  the advanced aging process  occurring in all of his somatic  cells, all of his body cells.  On the left, is a similar  disease that afflicts people  later, maybe in their 30's.  And the woman on the right, as  you can see, looks of advanced  years of age, even though she's  only 48.  Again, the same constellation  of things, coronary disease,  cataracts. 

 You can see that she lost one of  her eyes, and so on.  So I was interested in the  biology of aging.  How do cells age?  Where is this clock of aging?  And I stumbled across, in the  1980s, this figure from a book,  from an article by Howard Cooke.  He showed that the ends of the  DNA strands were shortening,  getting shorter as people grew  older.  He called it the Somatic  Diminution of the end of the  chromosomes.  But in the germ line, the cells  continue to make babies forever  and ever, they don't shorten.  I saw that, and I knew it was  consistent with a theory that  had been proposed years earlier  by a Russian scientist.  And what did I do?  I went off and started a company  called Geron.  It means old person, of course,  in Greek.  Those are fun days. 

 We were talking about the tough  economic climate, and how  biotech is struggling so.  In those days, I went to a bunch  of capitalists, one famous for  starting Google, and said I have  this idea.  And they said, Michael, who are  you, and I said, well, I've got  one paper published, but I've  got one in press.  Do you have patents?  No, but I think I know what  makes cells mortal and immortal.  I think it's a big idea.  And they funded it.  I think maybe the group kicked  in maybe $100 million in venture  capital into Geron.  I asked, by the way, years  later, buyers, why did you do  this.  Because, you know, there's this  crazy man saying he knew how to  make cells immortal, and things.  He said, well, Mike, you leaned  forward in your chair in the  whole conversation. 

 Obviously, you believed it was  true.  Can you believe that that would  be such a reason to fund the  company?  The good old days.  So the goal was to find  mechanisms that controlled aging  of cells.  Here you can see lit up on the  ends of DNA are these little  telomeres.  And the idea that these might be  the clock of aging.  So here, graphed out, is one of  my science slides, forgive me,  but I think it helps you see.  The little dots on the graph  going down, so here's skin cells  as they age, cultured in the  dish.  They are losing telomeres.  And eventually they stop at this  Hayflick limit that Hayflick  discovered.  But the reproductive cells were  maintaining an immortality, as  Weismann used the term, that  they replicate without limit,  not that they can't die. 

 My mother, God rest her soul, I  remember once visited the labs  at Geron when we had this  working.  And I said that we actually  immortalized human cells.  She had this worried look on her  face.  And I said, mom, what?  And she said, you can't kill  them?  There's nothing you can do?  What if they get out?  (light laughter)  It doesn't mean you can't kill  them, it means they just  replicate without limit until  you kill them.  We knew that the reproductive  line you could do that, we can  keep making babies.  How does it work?  I said it was this enzyme called  telomerase.  The idea was if we could get the  gene and put it into the body,  we might be able to forestall  the effects of aging.  There was a lot of skepticism  about it, as to whether it would  work.  We had to first find the genes.  It cost us $40 million to get  what I'm showing you, this  yellow-green protein that goes  onto the end of the DNA strands,  and makes these telomeres. 

 The theory was that enzyme was  the immortalizing enzyme.  And if we put it into cells that  age, they wouldn't age anymore.  And my wife actually cloned the  gene at Geron.  That's how I met her.  When we were dating, once we  went out for dinner.  And she said, Mike, do you  really think this is going to  work if we get the gene?  And I said, of course it will  work.  What do you think, I'm going in  front of all these venture  capitalists and making this up?  She said, well, when pigs fly.  Today, on my desk, I have a  brass flying pig that holds my  cards, because it worked.  And the way we tested it is a  funny little story to tell.  You see this dark splotch there?  That's skin from the leg of  Leonard Hayflick. 

 Len was in one day and for some  reason, he decided to  demonstrate how to do cell  culture with this foreign film  company.  He took a scalpel and chopped a  piece of skin off his leg.  And he filmed the blood dripping  on the floor and he thought it  was really interesting.  I thought it was a little bit  strange.  Len was even stranger.  He came to me with a little  piece of skin.  He said, do you want this?  I said, absolutely I do.  I put his skin in culture.  And here you can see these cells  crawling out of his skin after a  few days.  I cultured the skin of Leonard  Hayflick. 

 Why did I do that?  I wanted to know what the real  Hayflick Limit was.  (laughter)  How many doublings would Len's  cells go?  And then we have the telomerase  gene.  So the fun end of the story was  his cells, on the left you can  see senescent cells.  His cells, when we put the  telomerase gene, were the first  human cells ever to see this  gene like this.  Then we took them out and they  didn't age.  What a thrill, really, to see  that we had, just pure through  insight, had found a way to  manipulate the clock of cellular  aging.  And the darn thing worked.  It shouldn't have worked.  Again, this is a fun time to  reminisce.  I remember sitting overlooking  the ocean with Len Hayflick and  his wife Ruth. 

 The sun was setting.  I told him this had worked.  And he looked out over the ocean  and said, it can't be that  simple.  It's a bit awesome, isn't it,  that we can delve within the  cell and find these mechanisms.  And the darn stuff actually  works.  Well, I became interested in  what kind of a cell we could  telomerize, to use this  medically.  I remembered that scientists had  cultured the mouse embryonic  stem cell.  And I thought, you know what, if  we could get these in human, the  cells might actually be germ  line.  They might be so primitive that  they wouldn't age.  They'd be the first human cell  ever cultured that was actually  an immortal cell. 

 And as was mentioned previously,  I saw this paper of Jamie  Thomson's come out with the  culture of monkey embryonic stem  cells.  Of course, being in biotech, it  immediately occurred to me, this  institution, if they filed a  patent, it could cover human.  And if Dr. Thomson had the  skills to coax these cells out  of monkey embryos, he surely  could do it with human.  That was the basis of me coming  knocking on his door.  Now, I'm going to shift gears a  bit to talk about biotech, and  then I'm going to weave this  into a story.  Biotech began, as we know it,  with recombinant DNA.  On the left, you see Bob  Swanson.  On the right, Herb Boyer.  Boyer was a scientist, working  in this controversial area, of  recombinant DNA, if any of you  remember the controversies.  This was the birth of biotech. 

 The product was human growth  hormone, now Genentech has  progressed out of the garage,  into a multiple billion-dollar  company.  That was the beginnings of  biotech.  Here's, you know, the patent,  which was like the WARF  embryonic stem cell patent, a  controversial patent.  And here you can see a figure  how he described how we were  combining the DNA of different  species.  This troubled a lot of people.  A lot of people said this is too  profound of a technology to be  in the hands of mankind.  It's playing God with life  itself.  And there were a lot of  criticisms over the power of  this patent, and how it would be  commercialized.  Here you can see the cover of  Time magazine.  Again, with these nightmare  scenarios. 

 The scientists are tinkering  with life, and something bad is  going to come out of this.  We tend to forget about how  controversial this was.  The city of Cambridge,  Massachusetts, the home of  Harvard and MIT, banned  recombinant DNA technology for  some period of time, for those  of you who remember.  Bob Swanson is no longer with  us.  He died of brain cancer in 1999.  He used to visit frequently the  board of directors of Geron.  And I had the pleasure of  introducing him to this  technology from the Geron side.  And we talked about it.  And I have a quip up there, best  I can remember.  That's a bronze statue of Bob  and Herb, sitting having beer,  coming up with this idea to  build this company, and indeed a  whole industry of recombinant  DNA. 

 Bob told me, after one board  meeting, he said, this, meaning  embryonic stem cells, remember,  this is after we'd formed the  collaboration with Jamie, but  before the cells were actually  isolated.  He said this is going to be  controversial like recombinant  DNA was.  He said, I spent all my time in  Senate hearings, as Carl  mentioned.  Bob was saying, you know, he was  always trying to defend the  industry and defend these  patents and that sort of thing.  But he said to me, you know,  when the technology begins to  bear fruit, people won't even  remember the days.  And we'll see if he's right  about that.  But he was a wonderful man.  And in his own time, an ardent  supporter of this technology.  So then, biotech, I call it  biotech two, version two, the  sequencing with a genome.  This is Craig Ventor here, who  came up with this concept of  shotgun cloning the genome. 

 Suddenly, we had this sequence  of DNA.  And this was really another  revolution in biotech.  Companies like Human Genome  Sciences and his spinout  company, Solera, rapidly  achieved multiple billion dollar  market caps.  But the interesting question  was, what are they going to  sell.  What are the products?  So again, we're dealing with  fundamental biology of life and  human life, fundamentally  addressing problems.  It could be incredibly valuable.  But challenged, again, by  conventional business models,  like you know, what are you  going to sell.  Here's examples.  Notice the money tree generated  by DNA.  A bit of an exaggeration, I'd  have to say. 

 Successful companies, but  challenged by the length of time  it takes to turn these very  important discoveries into  products.  By the way a CEO for many years  is Bill, it was Bill, after  hearing a talk we gave at Geron  about embryonic stem cells, who  coined the term regenerative  medicine, recognizing, well we  all recognized that this was the  third big revolution in biotech.  And so that brings us to, as I'm  calling it the third revolution,  regenerative medicine.  What's so exciting about these  cells, you guys well know, is  they make everything.  You can do genetic modifications  in these cells, potentially  making -- and research products.  We believe these cells are so  far up that branch of  germ-line/soma that the cells  are immortal.  They're the only human cell,  normal human cell, that  cultured, that will replicate  without limit.  And that allows the scalability,  and this ability to do genetic  modifications.  So you can, if this can be  cells, and the dark cells  perpetuating the species in the  germ line, there can also be  cells perpetuating genetic  modifications.  So you have these embryonic stem  cells, you put in a gene. 

 You can now grow one cell into a  whole new line of cells, and do  that over and over again.  And that allows a very profound  fusion of these previous  technologies, recombinant DNA  and genomics into regenerative  medicine.  And that's why some of us  believe these are big  revolutions in the history of  biotech.  One of the big challenges for  regenerative medicine is the  complexity of everything human  embryonic stem cells can become.  I know this is hard to see, but  there are sort of the cells at  the base of the tree of human  cellular life.  And if you think that tree looks  complicated, well, multiply it  by a hundred, at least, for all  of the cells in the human body.  That's a very simplified tree.  We're made of cells.  But we're made of a mind  boggling complexity of cell  types.  And what I, and many look at  this from an intellectual  property standpoint, is a great  opportunity to file patents. 

 And the reason is, as you know,  the patent office will grant  composition of matter claims on  cells that have been isolated in  a pure form for the first time,  and hence, the work done here in  Wisconsin.  It begins at the top, you can  see here, in 1873, Louis  Pasteur.  He got patent 141,072.  And the patent claim was yeast,  free from the organic germs of  disease, used as an article of  manufacture.  And of course in beer.  So if you played at colonies  over here that were yeast, and  colonies over here that were the  bacteria, and you could separate  them, he went to the patent  office and said they don't exist  in pure form in nature, and this  will help make beer that doesn't  become contaminated.  And he got the patent.  It was challenged, as many other  such patents have been,  including the WARF patents.  Now, if we can combine that with  progress made, for instance, in  the biotech industry,  in Diamond vs. Chakrabarty,  the US Supreme Court ruled  that even manmade organisms  like bacteria and yeast that  had been genetically engineered  are patentable, anything under  the sun that is made  by the hand of man.  That sort of support really  helped the biotech industry back  around 1980, I think when that  decision was made. 

 By the way, thanks to a lot of  people.  You guys probably don't know  Tom Kiley.  I had a hard time finding his  picture on the Internet.  He's an avid sports fisherman.  And I found this on some fishing  site or something.  Tom wrote the brief  on Diamond vs. Chakrabarty  for Genentech.  Bob Swanson hired him  very early on.  He's a brilliant man.  There's another reason, Carl, I  appreciate your kind comments.  We should thank Tom, because  when I proposed to Geron's board  that we fund this work some  years ago here, to derive human  embryonic stem cells, to  summarize my case, looked around  the board and I could see a lot  of confused faces. 

 And no one really knew if this  was a good idea or a bad idea.  And Tom was on the board, still  is.  And I remember this like it was  yesterday.  He reached his thumb over the  table and he went like this.  He says this is a great idea.  Best idea I've heard in years.  And the board, well, I guess,  yeah, of course.  Next, what's next on the agenda.  And so Geron funded the work.  I'm convinced without Tom's  vision and support, that Geron  wouldn't have even backed this  project. 

 So back to the problems.  These cells make everything in  the human body.  That's the problem right now.  Some companies are having a hard  time getting these products into  humans, because of this  complexity.  This is no longer a colony of ES  cells.  These are those cells beginning  to make stuff in the dish.  And it's called an embryoid  body.  Some people think that it's a  human embryo, but it's not.  These are embryonic cells and  tissues forming in the dish.  And we have no idea what most of  them are, and how they're  contaminating things. 

 And so, at a company I went to  after Geron, Advanced Cell, we  said, look, this is so hard,  complicated, let's take cells  that show us what they are.  And we found cells from the back  of the eye, that pigment the  back of the eye a dark color,  called retinal pigment  epithelium.  And when they're lost, it causes  macular degeneration, one of the  leading problems of vision in  the elderly.  And we found we could make  these.  And because they became dark, we  could easily purify them, and we  made enormous progress at ACT in  developing a therapy.  It's one of the most interesting  therapies, currently.  Now, what we then did, it was an  imaginative type of thing, I  wish I could talk all night  about this.  I only have a few minutes.  But following a vision of  Solera, the way they rapidly  sequenced the genome, we tried a  trick in the laboratory to  shotgun clone the cells that can  come out of embryonic stem  cells, to try to get them in a  purified form.  It's called ACTCelerate, after  my old shameless plug for my old  company. 

 ACT was for Advanced Cell  Technology.  And we showed that these cells  that have an enormous life span  because they have long  telomeres, and that would allow  us to grow them up.  And then using these modern  genomic technologies, we could  quickly look at all of the genes  in these cells.  And the genes that are sort of  markers for those cells would  turn red.  And you can see the enormous  diversity of cells.  So these are precursors of  various kinds of tissues in the  human body.  And you could file patents on  them and say, look, we've  isolated the cells from the  inside of the mouth, very early  embryonic development.  And we've got the cells from the  lung, and the precursors to the  heart.  And we filed patents on all of  these different kinds of cells,  isolated in a purified form for  the first time.  Cell surface antigens, useful  for purifying them. 

 Here's some neural progenitors.  And I'm going to whip through  these.  These are kind of science  slides.  But you can see the purified on  the left.  These are neural progenitors,  which a German scientist has  been using in mice.  And you can see, actually,  regeneration of the brain with  these cells.  And we have them, as you can  see, they're all stained red.  They're in a purified form.  Here's a cell line we actually  offer for sale now.  It's a research-only use  product, Neural Crest. 

 This particular cell is from the  neck region.  I can tell by it's code.  It would make the lower jaw,  chin, and teeth.  We have cells that make the  peripheral.  You see TH+ is from the spinal  cord area, the peripheral  nervous system.  And based on these zip code  genes, we can actually tell  where on the spine these cells  originate.  And maybe on the far left  there, you can see R4, you can  see some of the cells that have  been made to glow.  You can actually track them in  the developing mouse and see  where they go.  And so we can understand how  these human cells could be used  clinically.  Here's another example of a cell  that's now for sale, under  license from WARF. 

 And again, based on all the work  that's been done in the mouse,  you can see on the left hand,  those blue stripes show us  exactly where this gene is  expressed, very precisely in the  developing animal, helping us,  you know, determine exactly what  these cells are and where they  come from, and how they could be  used.  Here's another example of  another one we've isolated  that's for sale.  Muscle progenitors.  Slow muscle fibers.  Here's another muscle cell.  There's all kinds of cells that  can be scaled up in these  bottles and sold for research  products.  But the hope is, in many ways,  we're ahead of the game.  I thought this would take 20-30  years to do using this  ACTCelerate technique.  Suddenly, we find ourselves  further along than we thought.  Where is all this going?  Well, we hope to have therapies  to treat disease. 

 We hope to find the capital to  advance them to the clinic.  But tonight, I want to talk  about more fun things.  You know, the future, I feel  strongly that we're at a point  in history that's enormously  powerful.  We talked about recombinant DNA  that began this field in  genomics, and having all this  DNA information, proteomics.  There's a company here in town  doing metabolomics.  But there's also embryomics.  All these networks.  It looks like the telephone  company, or something.  All these networks of genes that  control how cells become heart  muscle, and this and that.  You put all these together and  you come up with a very powerful  way of treating disease. 

 Here's our Web site,  www.embryome.com  which is an embryonic map.  It takes you through the  developmental tree in all of its  complexity.  You can actually click on these  branches, and it takes you to a  page for each individual cell  type.  We're going to be putting these  cells we've made from embryonic  stem cells up here for sale to  the research community.  Here's examples of some of the  cells that we're currently  selling already.  Here's some new cells that we're  just launching now, ten new  lines.  I could tell you all about them,  but here are bone forming cells,  and cells useful in treating  vascular disease, heart disease,  and others.  The fusion, as I've mentioned of  these technologies, will allow  us to label cells, so we can  turn them colors, like you see  here in blue.  Or here you can see the gene  from jellyfish, which it the  basis of a Nobel Prize here  recently, lighting up these  cells.  So they can literally send out  signals and say we've become  this or that type of cell. 

 We call that a spy.  That's one of our products that  we're making.  And of course, the most  controversial technology of all,  cloning.  It may be more divisive that  embryonic stem cells themselves.  It was the discovery in 1987,  that you can take a cell from  the body back to embryonic stem  cells by combining it with an  egg cell, and of course clone an  animal.  But you could also potentially  make patients specific stem  cells.  Take a cell from you or me,  maybe swab our cheek, or  whatever.  Combine our cell with an egg  cell and take it back in time  and make patient specific  embryonic stem cells.  That concept became known as  therapeutic cloning.  And it divided our country  terribly so. 

 What some of us saw within it  was a means to make, not only  patient specific stem cells, but  a way to reset the clock of  aging cells.  And we published here in 2000, I  believe, that we could take  cells out at the end of their  life span.  And through nuclear transfer,  these are cow cell, reset their  cell life span even longer, by  extending their telomeres  through the cloning technique.  So we come full circle to IPS.  So Dr. Thomson and a doctor in  Japan, showed that the cloning  can now be used for genes.  And the idea is that these genes  can substitute for the egg cell.  And as you know, even President  Bush was quite clear that he  supported IPS technology.  What I can tell you, it's made  an enormous difference to the  field.  I just met with Pfizer in London  two days ago.  And they've entered this field,  in large part because of IPS  technology. 

 So what we have now are an  enormous, the important  confluence of technologies.  I'm laying them out here.  Now the ways to purify cells  through this ACTCelerate clonal    technology, IPS, so we can  capture any kind of DNA type and  make these cells.  You put all these things  together, and it's a wonderful  vision for the future.  I found this piece of art.  It sort of symbolizes this.  It's actually in the department  of biology saying we have these  different disciplines.  But these are the disciplines  we're seeing merge for the first  time.  At the top, you can see an  embryo.  On the left, a gene chip,  symbolizing genomics. 

 The bottom, a family tree,  showing the hereditary disorders  we can capture with IPS.  On the right, these  developmental pathways about how  cells split off in different  directions.  My belief is this merger of  genetics and cell biology is far  more powerful than any of these  past revolutions in biotech.  And we'll fundamentally have a  very important impact on  society.  In particular, going back to the  beginning of our story, aging.  It's afflicting all of us.  Weismann, years ago, said aging  is due to cells in our body with  a clock running down.  We have learned he was right.  Carrel was wrong.  We now know that this telomere  biology is the clock of aging. 

 But can be reset with things  like IPS.  And now, regenerative medicine,  his vision of over 100 years  ago, is finally coming to  fruition in our modern world,  where technologies are far more  impressive than we'd ever hoped.  And now we're in an incredibly  challenged time economically.  The biotech is more stressed  than I've ever seen it.  And it reminded me to put up the  Gartner curve.  This is a cycle curve.  There's a technology trigger,  something that gets people  excited, and there's a peak of  inflated expectations,  disillusionment, slope of  enlightenment and the plateau of  productivity.  In this context, regenerative  medicine, the discovery of  nuclear transfer cloning  technologies, and now ten years  ago, publication of human  embryonic stem cells, was the  trigger.  What was the top?  Well, I looked up March, 2000,  and I don't know what Geron's  market cap was, but it was over  $2 billion.  The stock was at like $75. 

 And probably that would be one  way of measuring where the top  of this was.  I hate to bring politics into  this, but President Bush's  involvement in this field was  not very helpful.  I could tell you company after  company, I went to big pharma to  partner with, said Mike, you  know, we're trying to buy all  this political stuff, and we're  just not going there.  And that made it very difficult  for biotech.  And of course, what everyone  hopes is now, with IPS, and  Pfizer entering this field in a  big way, and President Obama  coming on board, that we'll have  a new and improved, more  enlightened world to do this  research.  As a reflection of that, going  out tonight, actually, is a  letter to President-elect Obama.  I'm going to read some excerpts  from it.  I think the Wisconsin State  Journal is going to publish this  in their OpEd page tomorrow or  the day after...  The letter goes on to state our  country's in a challenging time  with the retirement of the baby  boom population, the tsunami of  healthcare costs coming our way.  Here is a great opportunity. 

 The letter goes on to say...  The letter is signed by  approximately 20 Nobel  Laureates, including Jim Watson,  and Mario Capecchi, who won the  Nobel Prize this year for his  work in the mouse embryonic stem  cell some decades ago.  So that's my talk.  I appreciate very much, again,  the chance to tell you about my  thoughts about where we've been  and where we're going.  I guess we have a few minutes  for some dialogue, if you have  some questions, or you want to  talk.  Thank you very much.  (applause)  Do we have any questions?  I could make some up.  >> I know there will be  questions, because this crowd  always has good questions.  But sometimes it takes a minute  for people to make their way  down to the microphone.  And I want to certainly thank  Michael West, as you have, and  Mark Bugher and Carl  Gulbrandson. 

 And I'm encouraging you to come  over to that microphone, while I  talk here for just a minute, and  we let Michael West catch his  breath.  But also, I'd hope that while  you're making your way to the  microphone, that you'll remember  to hand in your cards on the way  out, for a door prize, which is  always a membership in the  Wisconsin Academy, in which you  do receive, as a benefit of  membership, the Wisconsin People  and Ideas magazine, which is of  course, showing Jamie Thomson  and his discovery, as this  month.  So I hope you'll become members  of the Wisconsin Academy.  And I see now that we do have  the beginning of some questions.  So I'll turn it back over to  Michael.  I'm sure there'll be a few  before we let you go.  So thank you again, Michael.  We really appreciate your  joining us.  >> Sure.  >> Yes, Dr. West, a very nice  talk. 

 Thank you for the retrospective  trip through the history from  recombinant DNA to the current  IPS cells, which is the basis of  my question.  The rationale behind making IPS  cells was to basically  recapitulate the nuclear  transfer cloning that created  Dolly.  So basically, a somatic cell  injected into an egg cell was  able to be reprogrammed to form  a whole new sheep.  So given that the goal of IPS  cells are to re-create what we  did with Dolly, what are the  chances that IPS cells have the  capability to actually form an  embryo.  >> I think they could.  >> Does that then,  mean the whole ethical issue.  >> You're right, I've never  believed that--  You know, we're saying all these  nice things about our country,  and how we've done a lot of  things right.  But I've got to be just as  transparent and honest as I can  be.  And I've got to say, the United  Kingdom has gotten this right  more than we have in the United  States.  They have a fertilization  embryology of 30, and  embryologists who really  understand the biology. 

 And they were puzzled by the  United States, this position on  this.  They realize there's far more  complex and sophisticated  issues, like the one you're  bringing up.  IPS cells could be turned into  people.  You know, if we invented to the  technologies to do so.  I mean, I could do it  spontaneously on our own.  I think there are far more  profound questions about, I  remember sitting in one  dialogue, actually after one  Senate hearing.  We went to members of Congress,  and they were talking about  cloning and cloning animals.  I said to them, you know, the  chances that some scientist goes  and does a cloning experiment  and tries to make a human clone  is diminishingly small.  I know these people.  There's an occasional person,  but this shouldn't be our  concern. 

 Frankly, I'm more concerned  about, I talked about this, with  the fusion of genetics and cell  biology, we can now make  genetically engineered animals  in any way.  And told the senator I had been  contacted by a group that wanted  to clone their dog, but make it  glow.  That jellyfish gene.  They were going to name it  Glowver.  (laughter)  I said that that troubled me.  I just love dogs.  And I just didn't want it as a  party stunt, you know.  And I thought what about the  poor dog.  Would he have trouble seeing,  because his eyes are glowing?  You know, I don't like this.  And the senator said to me, an  unnamed senator said, well, I  don't care. 

 We don't care.  And well, I do.  And to me, there are, the age of  the baby boomer, I'm sorry  you've got me going, but the  aging baby boom population.  And the amount of suffering from  arthritis, Alzheimers, and  things, to me, there are far  more critical issues our  nation's facing.  And some of the more  sophisticated and ethical  questions haven't even been  addressed.  >> Do you think then, that the  ethical question will arise  again after it's generally  understood that these cells  could do that?  >> No, I don't think so.  If you're just asking me what I  think, I don't think so.  I don't think.  I met one scientist in my whole  career that had any interest in  doing some wild things with  people.  I just don't think that's, you  know, I think that everyone is  focused on ways to cure diabetes  and Parkinsons, and things. 

 I just think it's silly, when  there's a mountain of  opportunity, to focus on some  bizarre experiments that people  can do.  And by the way, some of the  critics of embryonic stem cell  research are now saying because  the administration is going to  liberalize these policies, that  you're hearing the press saying,  well, now everything is going.  Pandora's Box is opened.  Scientists can do anything they  want to do.  And you know, from the very  early days, you remember, at  Geron, I set up an ethics  advisory board to oversee all  this research.  There was no law required to do  that.  I did it because I thought it  was the right thing to do.  I did the same thing at ACT.  I mean, the scientific community  is very responsible.  And to me, the ethical  challenges are that we're not  finding ways to advance this  technology fast enough to help  so many people. 

 I'm sorry, you get me going on  these things, it's hard for me  not to pontificate.  >> Dr. West, Jamie Thomson last  night spoke about the potential  use of stem cells as transplant  agents.  He said that he felt that  transplantation technology was a  long way in the future.  But it would be much more likely  that stem cells would be used in  experiments to determine the  cause of cell death, for  example, in such diseases as  Alzheimers and Parkinsons.  And that the immediate utility  of such cells was likely going  to be the development of  pharmaceuticals, that would  prevent those kinds of cell  damage, rather than replacing  cells in the brain with stem  cells.  What do you think?  >> It's always hard to look into  the future and predict  timelines.  And I think he and I both share  a reluctance to do so.  But from what I hear, I think  I'm probably more optimistic  than Dr. Thomson is about  timelines.  As I mentioned, seeing Pfizer  recently very visibly entering  this field in a very big way, I  know, I shouldn't name names,  but I talked to some people who  have been communicating with  pharma, the big pharmaceutical  companies.  They said all but one is very  actively engaged now in human  embryonic stem cell research. 

 So your licensing group should  take note of that.  And I don't know who that one  was, but they're all very  actively involved.  And you start bringing that sort  of, remember, the Geron is seen  as a leader in this.  It's a very small company, what,  a hundred or so scientists.  These are very small companies.  You get large efforts from  pharma and others, California  funding, all the research  they're funding, I think you'll  see much more progress than you  would've thought.  And of course, the technologies  are so synergistic that I'm  trying to describe.  Jim Watson, who headed the Human  Genome Project had made a  timeline for sequencing the  genome and then kaboom, you  know, it gets beat by years.  There's cleverness, creativity,  hands at the bench, sufficient  capital to hire those people,  really are the kinds of  variables, I think, will set the  timelines.  >> My question has to do with  the business model of a  successful biotech firm. 

 We all are familiar with the  Internet bubble bursting.  And a lot of that came about  with the hype and the  over-selling of the  possibilities coming out of  that.  How is a successful biotech  firm's business different to  avoid the same thing from  occurring ten years out, five  years out?  >> I don't know how to address  that.  These are such generalizations.  To me, the hype in the stem cell  sector has largely come from  well-meaning advocates of the  technology, rather than the  scientists themselves.  Right now, I think scientists  know biotech and they know  science.  You know, you heard my  excitement about the technology,  but I'm glad you brought that  up.  I always try to mention this  could take decades.  That's the challenge.  I don't hear any thoughtful  scientists not agreeing. 

 You saw the Nobel Laureates  signing this letter.  It's all because they all  recognize that these are really  big ideas that will change the  world.  When, though?  You're absolutely right.  The biotech model is near  terminal right now.  It's not good.  And the stem cell sector is seen  as exciting, but among the  earliest of technologies, the  most challenged, therefore, to  fund.  But I'm still optimistic.  Now, what we've done is you've  seen me, I didn't want to talk  so much about my company, but we  focused on near-term products  and revenues.  With the goal being the first  profitable company in this  sector.  So I'm selling these purified  cells to researchers who want to  study them. 

 I hope to make money from that  now, because that doesn't  require FDA approval.  But you're absolutely right.  The model is strained.  But I would argue it's the  timelines.  The investors today have no  patience for ten, 20-year  investments.  And embryonic stem cells are  just so new, they couldn't  possibly be in Phase III  clinical trials.  I've heard the critics say, you  know, adult stem cells are in  patients curing people,  scorecard 20, embryonic stem  cells scorecard zero.  It always bothered me, because I  thought how dishonest.  There's no conceivable way  embryonic stem cells could have  been in people already.  It anybody had done that, I  would argue they should be put  in jail for an irresponsible  therapy. 

 We have to test.  That's the job of the FDA, to  make sure people do that.  So with the technologies just  having come on board, embryonic  stem cells, as promising as that  technology is, it's one of the  longest term timelines.  And it's tough.  I know lots of companies out  there that 20 years ago would've  been a $400 million or $500  million market cap company, now  can't make payroll.  It's a very tough time.  Yeah?  (inaudible)  >> If the principles that there  was a viable treatment option  that came out of this research  with stem cells, for say,  Parkinsons patients or -- other  treatment options, what are the  thoughts in the boardroom of how  much that patient should have to  pay for that technology, given  that they've already paid  something up to that point.  What would be a fair price to  charge for treatment?  >> Well, yeah, I don't have the  answer for that.  I've been in several companies  and on several boards.  And on some boards, we'd say,  you know, what's he doing in  here?  Get rid of him. 

 We don't want people asking  questions like that.  I've heard that kind of an  attitude.  Myself, I'm kind of the guy who  entered the field to, my whole  life's just been trying to help  people who are sick.  You know, the money part comes  second.  We needed to hire people, but  there's different perspectives.  And I don't know the answer.  All I know is I live in this  world where I have what I'm  trying to get done.  And I need money to hire the  people to get the work done in  our lifetime.  It'll happen some day.  I'd like to see some of this  happen in our lifetime. 

 My investors have to know that  they're going to get a  reasonable return on their  investment.  That's the only world I live in.  I couldn't even begin to say I  have the answers as to how we,  as a society, are going to deal  with this.  I've talked to some people in  Washington about, because we  organized this letter that I  read to you.  Parts of, what could the  administration do for us in this  field.  Let's say President Obama reads  this letter and says, you know,  it has been ten years.  Yeah, I like the idea.  The next ten years, we're going  to make a difference.  He calls up WARF and says, what  can I do for you guys.  We had that discussion. 

 And I said to them, well, they  could extend our patent life for  these patents.  Like that's not going to work.  He's trying to reduce, get more  generics, reduce healthcare  expenditures for an aging  populations.  Oh yeah, you're right.  So he could, you know, we're  trying to come up with something  that the administration could do  to benefit the industry, but not  further erode our problem with  rising healthcare costs.  But that's as much as I can.  I don't have the answers for  your question.  I'm sorry, I wish I did.  >> Well, Mike, I think we're  probably at the end of our time  here.  I hope you'll accept this small  token of our appreciation for  your joining us tonight. 

 >> Thank you.  >> Thank you all for coming.  And help me thank again, one  more time, Michael West for his  great presentation.  (applause)