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BioE and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Form Research Partnership to Evaluate Cord Blood Stem Cell's Ability to Help Treat Cancer

Posted on: Monday, 29 January 2007, 09:00 CST

BioE®, Inc., a biomedical company that provides enabling, high-quality cellular tools for drug discovery and therapeutic research, and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center announced today a research partnership to evaluate the potential of BioE's cord blood stem cell -- the Multi-Lineage Progenitor Cell™ (MLPC™) -- to help treat cancer.

Specifically, BioE and M. D. Anderson will collaborate to determine the MLPC's utility as an anti-tumor protein delivery vehicle. M. D. Anderson has successfully used bone marrow-derived stem cells to transport anti-tumor proteins, such as interferon-beta (IFN-β) and interferon-alpha (IFN-α), to a tumor site in animal models. During these early studies, researchers suppressed the growth of tumors -- such as central nervous system gliomas; skin melanomas; and ovarian, breast and pancreatic carcinomas -- and the advancement of chronic myeloid leukemia.

"Our research suggests stem cells have an inherent ability to contribute to the microenvironment of tumors independent of histology or location, and can be manipulated to express anti-tumor genes," said Michael Andreeff, M.D., Ph.D., professor, M. D. Anderson's Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. "As a result, utilizing stem cells as a tool for delivering anti-tumor proteins has great potential for broad application in oncology. We are particularly excited to work with BioE's clonal, cord blood-derived MLPC to ascertain if it's an easily accessible and suitable alternative cell type for transporting anti-tumor proteins. Hopefully, this research and targeted approach for anti-tumor protein delivery can be developed into a new therapeutic modality for cancer therapy."

"We are eager to work with one of the nation's preeminent cancer centers and Dr. Andreeff's group as the application and use of our highly functional MLPC expands into oncology," said Michael Haider, president and chief executive officer for BioE. "Using our stem cell as a tool to more effectively transport anti-tumor proteins directly into a tumor is very promising and further demonstrates the MLPC's broad utility. We believe this oncology research will lead to additional studies examining the MLPC's ability to deliver various gene therapies throughout the human body and look forward to exploring this type of research in the coming months."

About BioE

Headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., BioE is a biomedical company that provides enabling, high-quality cellular tools for drug discovery and therapeutic research. The company's novel Multi-Lineage Progenitor Cell™ (MLPC™) stem cell -- derived from human umbilical cord blood and obtained using PrepaCyte®, the company's proprietary cell isolation platform -- provides clinicians and researchers a flexible, long-term and non-controversial tool for therapeutic research and drug discovery and screening. BioE is privately owned and was founded in 1993. For more information about the company, please visit www.bioe.com or call (800) 350-6466.

Source: Business Wire

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