Michael D. West

Michael D. West, PhD, is a gerontologist, and a pioneer in stem cells, cellular aging and telomere researcher, previous CEO of Advanced Cell Technology aka Ocata (NASDAQ: OCAT), founder of Geron (NASDAQ: GERN) (a J&J partner) and is the current CEO of BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX) of Alameda, California (San Francisco Bay Area), a biotechnology company regarded as a leader in the field of regenerative medicine with a focus on Cell Therapies based on pluripotent stem cells that are regarded as all powerful with the ability to become all cells types of the human body. BioTime stock is traded on the NYSE MKT and TASE change under ticker symbol BTX.
Prior to joining BioTime, West was Chairman of the Board, Chief Scientific Officer and CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. who changed its name to Ocata Therapeutics (OCAT) that also specializes in stem cell research and was acquired by Japanese big pharmaceutical company, Astellas for US$379M or $8.50 per share in February 2016. Prior that, he was founder, director, and Chief Scientific officer of Geron, for which he secured venture capital investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock and Domain Associates. At Geron, West initiated and managed programs in telomere biology relating to aging, cancer and human embryonic stem cell technology.
West organized the first collaborative effort to isolate human pluripotent (embryonic) stem cells for the purpose of manufacturing products in regenerative medicine in collaboration with James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin at Madison John Gearhart at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Roger Pedersen at the University of California, San Francisco.
In their telomerase research, West and colleagues at Geron cloned the RNA component of telomerase and collaborated with Thomas Cech (winner of 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), with whom they cloned the catalytic component of the telomerase enzyme, and sponsored collaborative research in the laboratory of Carol Greider, then at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Geron published evidence of the role of telomerase in cancer and cell immortalization in collaboration with Woodring Wright and Jerry Shay at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
For the company's Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board, he recruited Günter Blobel (winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology), Leonard Hayflick, Carol Greider (winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine), James Watson (winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine), and others.
Dr. West is often invited as a keynote speaker at events like World Stem Cell and is associated with 146 patents in the United States, Australia, Japan and elsewhere.