Now in its fifth month, Massachusetts stem cell biotechnology company Asymmetrex continues its campaign to increase awareness of the adult tissue stem cell counting problem in stem cell medicine. Now targeting patients and patient advocacy groups, for the month of January, the company’s director is featured on the Parents’ Guide to Cord Blood website with a news article that describes the company’s new solution for this long-standing challenge in stem cell transplant medicine.
On January 15 of this year, the Parents’ Guide to Cord Blood website featured an invited news article by Asymmetrex Director James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D. The PGCB was founded by former physicist Dr. Frances Verter, who now runs cell therapy resources like the PGCB and CellTrials.org. Now in its 21st year of operation, the PGCB continues its mission to educate parents with accurate and balanced information about cord blood banking, medical therapies, and cord blood storage options.
In his news article, Sherley takes the opportunity to share with parents, who store cord blood from their babies for future use in medical treatments, information about the newest advance in stem cell medicine. This advance made by Asymmetrex and its partner company, AlphaSTAR Corporation, is quite relevant to cord blood storage and use for medical treatments.
Working together the two companies devised a computer simulation approach to solve the stem cell counting problem. The new technology could be used to determine the dose of therapeutic stem cells in stored cord blood samples for the first time. Such knowledge would address presently intractable problems in cord blood transplant medicine, like identifying the high fraction of stem cell-deficient cord blood samples before they fail a patient.
The PGCB education opportunity fits well within Asymmetrex’s ongoing campaign to increase awareness to the half-century-old stem cell counting problem. Asymmetrex’s new advance, introduced into the stem cell medicine industry two years ago, is the first, and still the only, solution for the stem cell counting problem.
Since the introduction of Asymmetrex’s AlphaSTEM Test™ for specific and accurate counting of therapeutic tissue stem cells, the company’s market research made it quite clear that the stem cell counting problem was quite insidious, with many in the industry being unaware or uncertain of it and the medical deficiencies it causes. Asymmetrex’s response has been to increase awareness to the problem, including among patients; and in the case of kids, their parents.
Frances Verter’s invitation supports Asymmetrex’s education effort. “Arguably the most important question in stem cell medicine is how to accurately measure the doses of therapies, and now Asymmetrex proposes a solution.” The news article is an important effort towards bringing this crucial information to the full awareness of patients, as they can be quite effective in bringing its importance to the attention of stem cell doctors.
Of course, parents are not the only subscribers to the PGCB. A wide and diverse range of the participants in stem cell medicine and the stem cell supply industry also utilize the website. Sherley observes that, “The more who know, the more and sooner our solution will be evaluated for being the new quantitative standard for therapeutic stem cells in stem cell biology and medicine. That’s our goal.”
Asymmetrex, LLC is a Massachusetts life sciences company with a focus on developing technologies to advance stem cell medicine. Asymmetrex’s founder and director, James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert on the unique properties of adult tissue stem cells. The company’s patent portfolio contains biotechnologies that solve the two main technical problems – production and quantification – that have stood in the way of successful commercialization of human adult tissue stem cells for regenerative medicine and drug development. In addition, the portfolio includes novel technologies for isolating cancer stem cells and producing induced pluripotent stem cells for disease research purposes. Asymmetrex markets the first technology for determination of the dose and quality of tissue stem cell preparations (the “AlphaSTEM Test™”) for use in stem cell transplantation therapies and pre-clinical drug evaluations.
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