PluraStem
PluraStem utilizes its platform IT technology to create the world's first universal pluripotent
stem cell source. Human ESCs are an ideal tissue source for cell replacement therapy. They have
the potential for limitless self-renewal while retaining their ability to differentiate into a
wide variety of cells and tissues. Since their first derivation in 1998, ESCs have been used in
many studies in order to evaluate their potential therapeutic utility in humans. These have
included animal models of myocardial infarction, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, and bone
marrow deficiency. Results so far have been promising, and many groups are advancing studies in
support of clinical trials of ESC-derived cells. However, these studies have depended on either
the use of immunosuppressed animals to avoid allogeneic or xenogeneic graft rejection or the
coadminstration of highly toxic immunosuppressive drugs. Thus, a key limitation in transplanting
ESC-derived cells remains their potential to elicit a host immune response with subsequent graft
rejection due to immune mismatch between host and donor cells. In fact, recent studies showed that
a single minor histocompatability antigen mismatch led to the rejection of allogeneic ESCs. In
order to realize the enormous clinical promise of ESCs, novel cell lines capable of evading immune
rejection by immunocompetent hosts are desperately needed.
Escape has been focused on addressing this critical unmet need, and has had preliminary success
in developing and validating an immune override mechanism for human adult stem cells and somatic
cells. We accomplished this through our innovative platform technology called IT, a tolerogenic
molecule that confers immune protection to cells expressing it on their extracellular membranes.
Escape believes IT will reduce or completely obviate the need for adjunctive immunosuppression, a
dreaded class of drugs with serious side effects that is currently required to avoid donor rejection.
Escape's PluraStem line will allow the creation of off-the-shelf ESC-derived cell replacement
therapies for use in patients of any HLA type without the need for adjunctive immunosuppression,
HLA matching, or autologous sourcing.