INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY                    Product Citations

• The field of stem cell research is rapidly advancing with opportunities for discovery and development of patents and other forms of intellectual property (IP).

• Pluristem Innovations has exclusive rights to three key technologies which include issued and pending patents as well as trade secrets.

• Exclusive rights to patented methods of non-viral gene delivery into stem cells covered by an issued patent

• Proprietary technology for highly efficient delivery of functionally active proteins and peptides into  human and animal stem cells.  Direct delivery of functionally active proteins into stem cells is a very powerful tool for expansion and differentiation of stem cells because it does not result in permanent genetic modification of the cells.  Specific proteins are turned on during differentiation into specific lineages and  it is the transient expression of these proteins that is critical for differentiation of stem cells into a specific phenotype.  We will be testing a panel of proteins and peptides for their ability to differentiate stem cells into pancreatic and neuronal phenotypes using this approach.  The approach of using Profect reagents to mediate successful ex-vivo expansion of CD34 positive hematopoietic stem cells  has been recently published by researchers at Osaka University and Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation, Kobe, Japan (HOX Decoy Peptide Enhances the Ex Vivo Expansion of Human Umbilical Cord Blood CD34⁺ Hematopoietic Stem Cells/Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells.  (2006).  Stem Cells: 24 (11) 2592-2602.

• Exclusive rights to patented technology involving use of Gaussia luciferase for bioluminescent imaging of stem cells.  Gaussia luciferase is more than a thousand –fold brighter than firefly and renilla luciferases currently used in bioluminescent imaging techniques.  The success of the Gaussia luciferase’based bioluminescent imaging technology has been well documented by a recent publication from the Harvard School of Medicine (BA Tannous, DE Kim, JL Fernandez, R Weissleder, and XO Breakefield (2005) Codon-optimized Gaussia luciferase cDNA for mammalian gene expression in culture and in vivo.  Mol Ther, Mar 2005; 11(3): 435-43. ) and is also shown in the image of the beating heart on our website (kindly provided as a courtesy of Dr Bruce Bryan, CEO, Prolume Ltd. 

• Filed patents for the differentiation of stem cells into the pancreatic beta cell penotype by controlled intracellular delivery of specific proteins and peptides