Michael D. West, Ph.D.
Founder and CEO of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc.
Dr. West is Chief Executive Officer of AgeX Therapeutics (NYSE American: AGE) and Reverse Bioengineering, Inc. AgeX and its subsidiaries are focused primarily on developing therapeutics for medical conditions related to human aging. He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 concentrating on the biology of cell senescence. He has focused his academic and business career on the application of developmental biology to the age-related degenerative disease. He was the founder and first CEO of Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, California (Nasdaq: GERN) and from 1992 to 1998 he was variously, CEO, Director, and Vice President, where he initiated and managed programs in telomerase diagnostics, oligonucleotide-based telomerase inhibition as anti-tumor therapy, and the cloning and use of telomerase in telomerase-mediated therapy wherein telomerase is utilized to immortalize human cells. From 1995 to 1998 while at Geron he organized and managed the research collaboration between the company and its academic collaborators James Thomson and John Gearhart that led to the first isolation of human embryonic stem and human embryonic germ cells. From 1998 to 2007 he held positions as CEO, President, and Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT), which was eventually acquired by Astellas Pharma, Inc. At ACT he managed programs in reprogramming developmental aging using somatic cell nuclear transfer, retinal differentiation, and PureStemTM, a technology for the multiplex derivation and characterization of diverse clonal human embryonic progenitor cell lines. From 2007 to 2018 he was a CEO of Lineage Cell Therapeutics (NYSE American: LCTX) (previously known as BioTime, Inc.) where he led efforts to acquire Geron’s stem cell assets initially residing in Asterias Biotherapeutics (NYSE American: AST). During his tenure at Lineage, he led in the development of OpRegen for age-related macular degeneration which was eventually licensed to Genentech. He also led the development of Renevia, a matrix for cell transplantation now approved for use in Europe, OPC-1 for the treatment of spinal cord injury, VAC-2, a human ES cell-derived dendritic cell vaccine targeting telomerase in lung cancer, and diverse novel preclinical programs in orthopedics and other applications in regenerative medicine. At AgeX Therapeutics, he currently leads preclinical-stage programs in metabolic and vascular aging. At Reverse Bio he leads the development of induced Tissue Regeneration (iTR) commonly referred to as “partial reprogramming” as a means of reversing the aging of cells and tissues in the body as well as resulting cancer programs.
Dr. West is an author of over 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers with over 3,300 citations, an inventor on over 370 patents and patent applications filed world-wide, lectures widely in scientific and pharmaceutical meetings, and has represented the scientific research and biotechnology industry in numerous Congressional Hearings. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, and podcasts including Meet the Press, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Royal Society of London, BBC, Bill Nye, as well as others.