Ilex Medical Ltd. has injected $3.2 million into cell therapy company Kadimastem Ltd., as it prepares to list on the Nasdaq.

Ilex Medical Ltd. has injected $3.2 million into cell therapy company Kadimastem Ltd., as it prepares to list on the Nasdaq. As part of the investment, Ilex Medical was granted a total of 1,407,130 options (60% coverage) in two series, at exercise prices of $2.2 and $2.7 per share (up to 100% from the share price at the transaction). If exercised, it would increase the total investment to $6.7 million.

Sometimes, scientific progress comes from conceptual insights that arrive in a flash. More often, however, such progress arrives in a decidedly less glamorous, though no less important, manner.

Multiple companies are pursuing CD47-blockade as a tumor immunotherapy approach. Sana Biotechnology Inc., too, is interested in the therapeutic potential of CD47 – but from a very different angle. By overexpressing CD47 on stem cells, researchers at Sana want to make transplanted cells invisible to the immune system.

Sometimes, scientific progress comes from conceptual insights that arrive in a flash. More often, however, such progress arrives in a decidedly less glamorous, though no less important, manner – through the development of new technologies in what can be a very slow iterative cycle of getting a new method to work.

Two separate groups have recently shown that in mouse models, inactivation of a single gene was enough to directly convert other cell types in the brain into neurons.

Technical challenges at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) meeting led to at least one lively exchange of stem cell jokes in the chat box as the audience waited for talks to resume, including stem cell parental advice: “You can be anything you want when you grow up!”

LONDON – After the human brain organoid, here comes the gastruloid – a 3D organized model of key elements of the human embryo at around 18 to 21 days old.

Stem cells haven’t exactly panned out as hoped when it comes to approved therapeutics. There are only a couple that have received a nod from the FDA in very specific indications. But the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could push stem cells back into the limelight and more firmly establish them as therapeutically relevant.