Michael D. West (born in

Niles, Michigan Niles is a city in Berrien and Cass counties in the U.S. state of Michigan, near the Indiana border city of South Bend. In 2010, the population was 11,600 according to the 2010 census. It is the larger, by population, of the two principal cit ...

on 28 April 1953) is an American

biogerontologist Biogerontology is the sub-field of gerontology concerned with the biological aging process, its evolutionary origins, and potential means to intervene in the process. The term "biogerontology" was coined by S. Rattan, and came in regular use wit ...

, and a pioneer in stem cells, cellular aging and

telomerase Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most euka ...

. He is the founder and CEO of

AgeX Therapeutics AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (commonly abbreviated as AgeX Therapeutics or simply AgeX) is an American biotechnology company developing medical therapeutics related to human longevity. It was founded in 2017 by Michael D. West, initially as a subsid ...

, a startup focused on the field of experimental gerontology.

Early life and education

West was born in

, to a wealthy family which ran an automobile leasing business. After graduating from Niles Senior High School, West earned a BS in psychology from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976. He then returned to Niles to help run the family business before resuming academic studies. He earned an MS in biology from

Andrews University Andrews University is a private Seventh-day Adventist university in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Founded in 1874 as Battle Creek College, it was the first higher education facility started by Seventh-day Adventists and is the flagship universi ...

in 1982. That same year, he joined the laboratory of Samuel Goldstein, a molecular gerontologist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and began to research the molecular biology of aging. Following a clash with Goldstein over a series of experiments in which he demonstrated that results which Goldstein had published in ''

Cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...

'' were experimental artifacts, he transferred to the

Baylor College of Medicine Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate S ...

, where he worked in the laboratory of another molecular gerontologist, James Smith, and graduated with a PhD in cell biology in 1989. He did postdoctoral research at the

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern or UTSW) is a public academic health science center in Dallas, Texas. With approximately 18,800 employees, more than 2,900 full-time faculty, and nearly 4 million outpatient vi ...

Career

Prior to joining BioTime, West was chairman of the board, chief scientific officer and CEO of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), another biotechnology company focused on stem cell research. ACT later changed its name to Ocata Therapeutics, and was acquired by Japanese pharmaceutical company

Astellas Pharma is a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company, formed on 1 April 2005 from the merger of and . On February 5, 2020, the company announced management changes effective from April 1, 2020. Astellas is a member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Fina ...

for US$379M or $8.50 per share in February 2016. Prior that, West was founder, director, and chief scientific officer of Geron, for which he secured

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

investment from

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

Venrock Venrock (portmanteau of Venture and Rockefeller) is a venture capital firm formed in 1969 to build upon the successful investing activities of the Rockefeller family that began in the late 1930s. It has offices in Palo Alto, California, New York ...

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 Pluripotency: These are the cells that can generate into any of the three Germ layers which imply Endodermal, Mesodermal, and Ectodermal cells except tissues like the placenta. According to Latin terms, Pluripotentia means the ability for many thin ...

(embryonic) stem cells for the purpose of manufacturing products in regenerative medicine in collaboration with James Thomson at the

University of Wisconsin at Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

, John Gearhart at

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

, and Roger Pedersen at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...

. In their telomerase research, West and colleagues at Geron cloned the RNA component of telomerase and collaborated with

Thomas Cech Thomas Robert Cech (born December 8, 1947) is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, ...

(winner of 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), with whom they cloned the catalytic component of the enzyme telomerase, and sponsored collaborative research in the laboratory of Carol Greider, then at

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, and quantitative biology. It is one of 68 institutions supported by the Cancer Centers ...

. 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 Günter Blobel (; May 21, 1936 – February 18, 2018) was a Silesian German and American biologist and 1999 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in ...

(winner of the 1999

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

Physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

Leonard Hayflick Leonard Hayflick (born 20 May 1928) is a Professor of Anatomy at the UCSF School of Medicine, and was Professor of Medical Microbiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a past president of the Gerontological Society of America and ...

, Carol Greider (winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine), James Watson (winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine), and others. West has been a keynote speaker at events including World Stem Cell and is associated with 146 patents in the United States, Australia, Japan and elsewhere.

Bibliography

Books

West has authored and co-edited books on topics including animal cloning, aging, biogerontology, stem cells, stem cell biology, and regenerative medicine. * 2002 ''Principles of Cloning'' * 2003 ''The Immortal Cell'', by Michael D. West, Doubleday * 2004 ''Handbook of Stem Cells: Volume 1 Embryonic Stem Cells'' * 2004 ''Handbook of Stem Cells: Volume 2 Adult and Fetal Stem Cells'' * 2006 ''Essentials of Stem Cell Biology'' * 2010 ''The Future of Aging'' * 2010 ''The Future of Aging: Pathways to Human Life Extension''

References

External links