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Biotech / Medical : Geron Corp. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Leeper who wrote (2273)	2/21/2000 7:52:00 PM
From: Asymmetric	Respond to of 3576

Researchers Find Telomerase Enzyme Can Shield Mice Against a Cirrhosis The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- February 18, 2000 By LAURA JOHANNES / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BOSTON -- Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that an enzyme that repairs tiny cellular clocks called telomeres can protect mice against liver cirrhosis. The paper, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, is the most dramatic demonstration to date that boosting cellular levels of the enzyme, called telomerase, may be useful in treating disease. Previously, interest in telomerase and telomeres has focused on the notion that they could somehow be used to lengthen life spans generally. Although that hope has so far proven elusive,the cirrhosis news is likely to heighten the interest of biotechnology companies in finding telomerase-boosting drugs for a wide variety of conditions. Already, a handful of companies, including Geron Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., have active telomerase research programs. "Cirrhosis is one of several disorders, including multiple sclerosis and AIDS, where cells lose their ability to regenerate," says Jerry Shay, a professor of cell biology at the Univ of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "Telomerase may be able to restore that ability." Telomeres, or "end parts" in Greek, are protective caps on the ends of chromosomes, the gene-bearing cellular structures. Some of the most intriguing and mysterious parts of the cell, telomeres appear to get shorter with each generation of cell division. What they do has been a source of controversy, but some scientists believe they serve as little fuses that tell cells when to stop reproducing themselves. Cirrhosis is a fatal condition often related to hepatitis or alcoholism in which the liver, the organ that removes toxins from the blood, stops working properly. After continued destruction, "liver cells run out of telomeres and lose their ability to regenerate," says Dr. Ron DePinho, a researcher at Dana-Farber. The Dana-Farber researchers, working with colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Bronx, N.Y., created a strain of mice with exceptionally short telomeres. Then they attempted to cause cirrhosis in the mice with various methods, including giving them a poison that affects the liver and removing two-thirds of their livers surgically. The scientists found that the short-telomered mice were dramatically more likely to develop cirrhosis than normal mice, which are notoriously resistant to the disease. Moreover, when the researchers used gene therapy to insert telomerase into the cells of the special strain of short-telomered mice, these mice also proved remarkably resistant to cirrhosis. Before telomerase can be tested in humans for cirrhosis, scientists must figure out how to deliver it into cells and then establish its safety. Some scientists fear that telomerase therapy, by allowing cells to divide indefinitely, could spur cancer. But Dr. Shay argues that so many things contribute to tumor formation that "there is no reason to say that telomerase alone is going to cause cancer." It will take at least five to 10 years until telomerase therapy can be tested in humans for cirrhosis, but "we're extremely motivated to move this into the clinic," says Dr. DePinho, who plans more mouse experiments to confirm the discovery. Write to Laura Johannes at laura.johannes@wsj.com

To: George Leeper who wrote (2273)	2/21/2000 8:30:00 PM
From: Asymmetric	Respond to of 3576

"A Stock For the Ages" George - I've never run across a company like Geron. Usually companies have bits and pieces here and there regarding having a solution to a problem or market need, if we can talk in generic terms here. Or if they have acheived vertical integration, like the old Ford River Rouge plant where raw materials entered one end, and complete cars exited the other, the company was a huge multi-billion multi-national corporation with great resources at its disposal. Geron is a tiny biotech company with maybe 200 people under it's roof (not sure how many people came with Roselin Institute - but then it was the nuclear transfer patents that made it so valuable, as well as the top scientists that made Dolly) and they own 3 of the key pieces: Telomerase, Nuclear Transfer, and Stem Cell Research, that for example would allow them to artificially grow organs, skin, etc. My understanding of how their science fits together is they would use their knowledge of nuclear transfer to transfer your DNA into pluripotent stem cells, then coax it to differentiate along a particular path to say skin or heart, etc, and use telomerase to make the cells grow into the organ that was needed. While this is still far off into the future, the thing that's amazing is the future, as evidenced by the many recent announcements of the last year and a half, is getting closer at a much more rapid rate than anyone had envisioned. As you can see with the news regarding telomerase's benefical effects on liver cirrhosis of a mouse, the news just keeps getting better and better, and the applications more widespread with the passage of time. I'm just an investor, not a scientist, doctor or a biochemist, etc. so maybe I'm off the mark here, but I do think this company will prove itself to be a stock for the ages. If you are looking to buy into this company, I would recommend scaling in any purchase. While a correction in the Nasdaq is widely anticipated, and especially so in the biotech area, the sector has been so strong and the buying so relatively recent that it seems to me, we would just be pausing here, catching our breath, before taking up the race again. Plenty of investors were taken by surprise by the sheer strength of this run-up, both in this company and in this sector, and are looking, like yourself to get in or back in. Whatever you do, be nimble. Buying windows in stocks overall, with products that address huge potential markets, are very small now-a-days. As always, do your own due diligence and never make decisions based solely on what you read here. Good luck whatever you decide. Peter.