SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwire - Apr 13, 2012) - Medistem Inc. (PINKSHEETS: [ MEDS ]) announced today it has co-authored a peer-reviewed publication disclosing a new approach to stimulating the immune system to kill tumor cells using a novel nanotechnology-based approach.

In the publication (PLGA nanoparticle-mediated delivery of tumor antigenic peptides elicits effective immune responses. International Journal of Nanomedicine, 7: 1475, 2012) Medistem and a team of collaborators demonstrated that nanoparticles could be used to deliver molecules found on tumors to specific cells of the immune system called "dendritic cells." These nanoparticle-loaded dendritic cells were then able to stimulate other cells of the immune system to directly kill tumors in the test tube and also in mice bearing prostate cancer.

"Cellular therapy is a clinical reality, for example, the company Dendreon developed the first therapeutic FDA-approved cancer vaccine Sipuleucel-T (Provenge) that is currently being used for treatment of patients with hormone-resistant prostate cancer. The data we published today provides ways of optimizing treatments such as Provenge," said Dr. Vladimir Bogin, President and Chairman of Medistem. "By using nanotechnology to specifically educate dendritic cells to activate the immune system in patients, it may be possible to develop more effective ways of treating cancer by leveraging the body's own resources."

The senior author of the publication, Dr. Boris Minev, is faculty at the Moores Cancer Center, and at the Division of Neurosurgery of the University of California, as well as Director of Immunotherapy and Translational Oncology at Genelux Corporation. Additional collaborators included the Laboratory of Biomaterials and Nanotechnology, University of California Riverside, the Division of Neurosurgery, of University of California Los Angeles, and the Chemistry Department at San Diego State University.

"For more than 4 years, I have thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with the Medistem Team, in areas including treatment of multiple sclerosis, cancer immunotherapy, rheumatoid arthritis, and now nanotechnology. The common theme of our collaboration is leveraging the body's own resources as a therapeutic," said Dr. Boris Minev. "In addition to the recently announced clinical trials for Medistem's Endometrial Regenerative Cell (ERC) universal donor stem cell, I am looking forward to clinical translation of other products of our collaboration."

To date Medistem and Dr. Minev have published 12 peer-reviewed papers together. Dr. Minev was co-author on Medistem's original paper describing human use of the ERC in patients with multiple sclerosis ([ click here ] for link [ http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/pdf/1479-5876-7-15.pdf ]), as well as several other basic research and clinical publication. Medistem has filed US provisional patent # 61/592,636 covering naturally-derived nanoparticles generated by ERC.

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