Dr. Martin Edwards: The Company was founded in 1997 by three scientists from the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College in London, together with what is now Merlin Biosciences, the venture capitalist. The founders' expertise was really in neural stem cells, which has continued to be the area of focus for the company to this day. Initially the company's science started with braincells derived from immorto-mice, that is, stem cells w which are called conditionally immmortalized cells. These are cells with a temperature-sensitive gene switch in them which divide vigorously at 33 degrees and cease dividing and will differentiate, at 37 degrees. Having done mouse work initially, the company then switched to try and develop human cells which had similar biological features, and were also conditionally immortalized and this really has continued to be the focus of our activities to date.
TWST: Briefly, what's at end goal for stem cell research and more specifically where do you hope your research leads to?
Dr. Martin Edwards: I think everybody working in this field hopes for the same thing, i.e., that you could implant into the body, in an area where cells had either died or were diseased, stem cells which would mature in the damaged region and to some extent replace the cells and therefore replace their function. In our case, with our interest in the brain, we are interested in diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and Stroke. However, many other groups are interested in the idea of cell replacement in all other regions of the body. The Holy Grail is, if you like, cell- replacement therapy.
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