Fate Therapeutics Expands Scientific Advisory Board to Advance iPSC Technology and Stem Cell Modulator Pipeline

SAN DIEGO and OTTAWA, May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Fate Therapeutics, Inc. announces the appointment of six respected research leaders to the Company's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).  The new SAB members bring deep experience and expertise in systems biology, epigenetics, gene regulation, expression analysis and adult stem cell and developmental biology.  The combined interdisciplinary expertise will further support Fate's interrogations of adult stem cell biology and advancement of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology.  Fate recreates and quantifies adult stem cell niche environments for the discovery of "stem cell modulators," small molecule or biologic compounds that guide cell fate in vivo for therapeutic benefit.  Fate's iPSC technology platform incorporates minimally invasive reprogramming and differentiation methods with quantitative biology detection and analysis tools to recapitulate human physiology for commercial scale drug discovery and therapeutic use.

"Since the founding of Fate in 2007, we have actively engaged and collaborated with world-renowned scientists to utilize stem cells in novel ways as both targets and tools in drug discovery," said Paul Grayson, president and CEO of Fate Therapeutics.  "We look forward to continuing to work with these great minds as we advance our stem cell modulators in the clinic and identify new methods to enable widespread commercial use of iPSC technology."

The new members of the Fate SAB are as follows:

• Steven Goldstein, Ph.D., Henry Ruppenthal Family professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Bioengineering, professor in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering and associate chair for research in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Michigan, has spent more than 25 years studying the mechanical and biologic influences on bone adaptation, formation and repair, and has developed a variety of orthopaedic implants and tissue engineering strategies for bone and wound repair.
• Alberto Hayek, M.D., research professor of Pediatrics at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and scientific director of the Whittier Institute for Diabetes, has more than 20 years experience in diabetes research and was first to demonstrate that human islets replicate in vitro.  He also identified endocrine cell progenitors in the human fetal pancreas by developing protocols for fetal cell transplantation widely used today in research.  For the last five years, he has studied the differentiation of both embryonic and iPSCs into insulin-producing cells.
• Sui Huang, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the Institute of Biocomplexity and Informatics at the University of Calgary, distills high-density data generated by quantitative biology to answer the questions of what is the essence of "stemness" and how cells make decisions to become specific cell types.
• Mark Krasnow, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, researches the genetic, cellular, and molecular mechanisms of lung formation for better understanding of and treatments for lung diseases.
• Sean Morrison, Ph.D., director of the University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology, professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, research professor in the Life Sciences Institute, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, investigates the mechanisms that regulate stem cell function in the hematopoietic and nervous systems.
• Stuart Orkin, M.D., chair of the Department of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, David G. Nathan professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Children's Hospital Boston, researches the development and function of the blood system, the relationship between cancer and stem cells and the mechanisms responsible for self-renewal of stem cells.

The new SAB members join Fate's scientific founders, Phil Beachy, Ph.D., Sheng Ding, Ph.D., Rudolf Jaenisch, M.D., Randall Moon, Ph.D., David Scadden, M.D., and Leonard Zon, M.D., and current SAB members, Robert Langer, Sc.D., Lynn Megeney, Ph.D., Michael Rudnicki, Ph.D., and Ben Shapiro, M.D.  

About Fate Therapeutics, Inc.

Fate Therapeutics is interrogating adult stem cell biology and applying induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to develop stem cell modulators (SCMs), small molecule or biologic compounds that guide cell fate for therapeutic purposes.  The Company's award-winning, proprietary iPSC technology platform incorporates the most advanced viral, small molecule and protein reprogramming methods and offers a highly efficient, minimally invasive system to recapitulate human physiology for commercial scale drug discovery and therapeutic use.  The Company's approach has broad therapeutic potential in areas such as regenerative medicine, hematological diseases, metastatic cancer, traumatic injury and degenerative diseases.  Fate Therapeutics is currently conducting a Phase 1b clinical trial of FT1050, a small molecule SCM designed to increase hematopoietic stem cell number and function in dual umbilical cord blood transplant recipients with hematologic malignancies, such as leukemia and lymphoma.  Fate Therapeutics is headquartered in San Diego, CA, with a subsidiary in Ottawa, Canada.  For more information, please visit http://www.fatetherapeutics.com.

SOURCE Fate Therapeutics, Inc.