X-Message-Number: 15138 From: "Jan Coetzee" <> Subject: StemCells Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 21:13:57 -0500 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_00C9_01C06A00.9971F320 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" StemCells Shares Soar After Brain Cell Transplant Paper LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Shares of StemCells Inc. (NasdaqNM:STEM - news) soared 70 percent on Tuesday after the company said it had succeeded in transplanting human brain cells into mice and that these cells were able to regenerate and show neurological activity. Shares of the Sunnyvale, Calif. company were up $1-3/4 at $4-1/4 on Nasdaq, but the stock was well below its 52-week high of $20. StemCells is focused on the discovery and development of therapies to treat diseases of the central nervous system, pancreas, and liver that use stem cells to repair or repopulate damaged or lost tissue. Stem cells are early-stage undifferentiated master cells capable of developing into many different types of specialized cells, such as neurons, bone, or heart tissue. Researchers hope the cells can one day be routinely delivered directly to diseased human tissue to treat or cure a variety of ailments including Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries. In findings reported in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the company's researchers said they were able to isolate human central nervous system stem cells which then formed new ``daughter'' stem cells. When implanted in mice, the stem cells proliferated and showed neural activity for more than a year, according to the published report. The progeny of the cells differentiated into all types of brain cells, the researchers said. This type of implantation has been done previously with genetically-modified cells, but not with unmodified cells. Email this story - View most popular | Formatted version ------=_NextPart_000_00C9_01C06A00.9971F320 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15138