International Stem Cell features in Breakthrough Technology Alerts

Once again Patrick Cos writes about ISCO's latest breakthrough in Parkinson's diease therapy.  The full post is reproduced below with permission from P. Cox.

March 19, 2013 ISCO Publishes Evidence Regarding Parthenogenetic Parkinson's Therapy Dear Breakthrough Technology Alert Reader, This will be short. My time this month is filled with appointments for my cataract surgeries, all over an hour north from this halcyon island that I call home. To complicate things further, my son's vehicle was totaled a few days ago and I've got to get him another SUV as soon as possible. Yes, I said SUV. As I've said here before, I believe steel is the best insurance policy. The incident that sent my son's transportation to the wrecking yard eloquently demonstrates this. He was stopped, waiting second in line at a red light in a major intersection. A drunk driver, probably passed out, hit him at high speed from behind. Fortunately, the weight and strength of the SUV was such that my son and his passenger were uninjured. The drunk driver's vehicle careened off my son's and hit the next car in line. As it was much lighter, it was pushed across the intersection and into opposing traffic. Fortunately, other drivers avoided the mess, but the lesson is clear. Ceteris paribus, bigger and heavier is better. Yes, smaller cars with modern safety technologies are safer than older smaller cars, but a big heavy vehicle with those same safety innovations is best of all. It is irrational to buy expensive insurance, which is paid out after the harm done by an accident, while driving a smaller car. Paying less for fuel also increases the risk of greater injury in accidents, which is a bad trade-off in my book. Coincidentally, the password for the leaked Climategate email file has been sent to a select group of scientists, giving them access to the behind-the-scenes conversations among the world's top advocates of the man-made global warming theory. I bring this up only because this group of global warming activists and their supporters have targeted SUVs for extinction. I'm open to persuasive evidence that CO2 needs to be controlled, but it hasn't yet been produced. Persuasive evidence is needed because, as the Climategate leaker says, policies that would cut CO2 production would have a calamitous impact on the poor. ISCO Publishes Major Article on Parthenogenetic Stem Cell Science It's great to see International Stem Cell Corp. (OTCBB: ISCO) moving ahead. Their technology is of enormous importance and potential, so this evidence that parthenogenetic stem cells can be used to counter Parkinson's is a major breakthrough. This is a fascinating branch of science because, as you know, these cells do not occur naturally. They are created using oocytes, immature ova gathered during routine fertility procedures. ISCO is clearly taking a different path in the creation of therapeutic cells. From the press release: “The paper describes the technology, developed by ISCO's R&D team, for producing highly pure populations of GMP-grade neuronal cells suitable for preclinical studies and clinical trials. The neuronal cells created using this approach are further characterized using a number of analytical methods and shown to function in a similar manner to adult cells. Moreover, neuronal cells produced using this new method express greater levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter central to PD, than previously reported approaches. Furthermore, these hpSC-derived neuronal cells are cryopreservable and can be stored frozen, and provide a practical route to creating neurons of sufficient quality to be used to treat Parkinson's disease patients. "'It is important that our research is reviewed and validated by the scientific community, and being able to publish in a Nature-branded journal provides confirmation of the quality of ISCO's scientific research,' commented Dr. Andrey Semechkin, CEO and co-chairman.” Read the press release here. The journal paper is here. Early this morning, ISCO announced positive results for their primate Parkinson’s study. This is huge. I will have more for you in a future alert. In the meantime, you can find the press release here. MIPS Technologies (Inc.) Complete Well, MIPS is now part of Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG). Shares of MIPS will receive $6.21 in cash and 0.226276 shares of MIPS' common stock, a consideration worth $1.80, totaling $7.31. Our acquisition cost was $6.42, so this is a decent, but somewhat disappointing return. Yours for transformational profits, Patrick Cox