NeoStem Announces Research Supporting VSEL(TM) Technology Presented At The American Society Of Hematology Annual Meeting

NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NeoStem, Inc. (NYSE MKT:NBS), an emerging leader in the fast growing cell therapy market, announced today that multiple abstracts presented December 8-11 at the 2012 American Society of Hematology ("ASH") annual meeting, add to the growing body of scientific work describing the capabilities of very small embryonic-like stem cells ("VSELs™"). These papers are published as 2012 Annual Meeting Abstracts in the journal Blood, Volume 120, Issue 21.

"Cell therapy has the potential to radically change the face of how diseases are treated, leading to longer and, more importantly, better quality lives," said Dr. Robin Smith, CEO of NeoStem. "These abstracts include one authored by members of the NeoStem research and development team and three coauthored by Mariusz Z. Ratajczak, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sci., co-inventor of VSEL™ Technology and member of NeoStem's Scientific Advisory Board. NeoStem's technologies, including its VSEL™ Technology which is in pre-clinical development, are supporting this paradigm shift in medical treatment that we believe is underway and that is developing cell therapies through amplification of our own body's natural repair mechanisms; a shift toward treating disease with our own cells and toward finding cures, as opposed to treating the symptoms of illnesses. The potentially broad application of our VSEL™ Technology could lead to the treatment of a wide-range of serious medical conditions, including macular degeneration, acute radiation syndrome, wounds, periodontitis and even osteoporosis."

The VSEL™-related ASH abstracts include:

• "A Lin-CD45-CD34+ Population of Extracellular Vesicles in Human Blood that Mimics Very Small Embryonic-Like Stem Cells (VSELs) by Flow Cytometry," co-authored by David W. O'Neill, M.D., Director of Research and Development, Progenitor Cell Therapy ("PCT", a NeoStem company) and Yajuan Jiang, Ph.D., Director Research Operations and Senior Scientist, PCT, along with other colleagues from the NeoStem research and development team. This work highlights the importance of continuing efforts to fully characterize human VSELs™ and the use of well defined, highly purified populations for in vitro and in vivo studies to demonstrate therapeutic activities. In order to develop a cell therapy that is VSEL™-based, NeoStem is focused on developing more efficient and cost-effective methods to isolate these cells.  
• Three abstracts coauthored by Mariusz Z. Ratajczak, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sci.. These abstracts further the research on murine VSEL™ capabilities, suggesting their potential to proliferate into hematopoietic stem cells as well as expand in vivo in bone marrow in response to toxic damage of the brain, as well as data indicating that prolonged strenuous exercise may cause bone marrow VSELs™ to proliferate and mobilize into peripheral blood.  
• An abstract from Yoshiaki Sonoda and colleagues at the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Kansai Medical University, Osaka, Japan describing a method for extracting VSEL™-like cells from bone and outlining work that begins to compare the properties of these bone-associated cells with bone marrow-derived VSELs™.

Dr. Smith further commented, "While still early, we believe there is much promise for VSELs™ and look forward to getting them into the clinic in order that we may explore their full potential and regenerative properties."

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