Michael D. West, Ph. D.

Michael D. West, Ph. D., is a molecular gerontologist and entrepreneur having founded 10 biotechnology companies and acted in senior management of six public companies. Dr. West is a founder and CEO of LifeCraft Sciences. He was the founder and CEO of AgeX Therapeutics (now Serina Therapeutics (NYSE: American: SER)). Prior to that, he was CEO of BioTime, Inc., (now Lineage Cell Therapeutics (NYSE American: LCTX)), and prior to that CEO of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) (now Astellas Inst. for Regenerative Medicine). Prior that, Dr. West was founder, director, and CEO, and CSO of Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN), where he pioneered and managed programs in telomere biology relating to aging and cancer, and founded the field of regenerative medicine by leading the first isolation of human pluripotent stem cells. In their telomerase research, West and colleagues at Geron cloned the RNA component of telomerase and subsequently collaborated with Thomas Cech (winner of 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), with whom they cloned the catalytic component of the enzyme.

Early Life and Education

Dr. West was born in Niles, Michigan, to a wealthy family which ran an automobile leasing business. After graduating from Niles Senior High School, West earned a BS in psychology from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976. He then returned to Niles to help run the family business before resuming academic studies. He earned an MS in biology from Andrews University in 1982. That same year, he joined the laboratory of Samuel Goldstein, a molecular gerontologist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and began to research the molecular biology of aging. Following a clash with Goldstein over a series of experiments in which he demonstrated that results which Goldstein had published in Cell were experimental artifacts, he transferred to the Baylor College of Medicine, where he worked in the laboratory of another molecular gerontologist, James Smith, and graduated with a PhD in cell biology in 1989. He did postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Presentations

Publications

West MD, Sternberg H, Labat I, Janus J, Chapman KB, Malik NN, de Grey AD, Larocca D.; Toward a unified theory of aging and regeneration.; Regen Med. 2019 Sep;14(9):867-886. doi: 10.2217/rme-2019-0062. Epub 2019 Aug 28.
West MD, Chang CF, Larocca D, Li J, Jiang J, Sim P, Labat I, Chapman KB, Wong KE, Nicoll J, Van Kanegan MJ, de Grey ADNJ, Nasonkin IO, Stahl A, Sternberg H.; Clonal derivation of white and brown adipocyte progenitor cell lines from human pluripotent stem cells.; Stem Cell Res Ther. 2019 Jan 8;10(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s13287-018-1087-7.
West MD, Labat I, Sternberg H, Larocca D, Nasonkin I, Chapman KB, Singh R, Makarev E, Aliper A, Kazennov A, Alekseenko A, Shuvalov N, Cheskidova E, Alekseev A, Artemov A, Putin E, Mamoshina P, Pryanichnikov N, Larocca J, Copeland K, Izumchenko E, Korzinkin M, Zhavoronkov; Use of deep neural network ensembles to identify embryonic-fetal transition markers: repression of COX7A1 in embryonic and cancer cells.; A.Oncotarget. 2017 Dec 28;9(8):7796-7811. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.23748. eCollection 2018 Jan 30.

Contact

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Dr. Michael D. West
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