Dr. Michael West to speak at Undoing Aging 2018

Mountain View, CA / Berlin, Germany
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We are happy to announce Dr. Michael West as a speaker for the 2018 Undoing Aging Conference.

Michael D. West, Ph.D. has devoted his entire career to unraveling the mystery of the biological clock: from his scientific training with a focus on the biology of cellular aging, to his founding of Geron (short for Gerontology), to helming other successful biotechnology companies with a focus on immortal “pluripotent” cellular therapies, to authoring a popular book on human aging. AgeX and its clinical programs represent the culmination of his nearly three decades of research and development into the aging process.

Dr. West has served as co-CEO of AgeX parent company, BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX) since 2015, and before that as CEO, starting in 2007. From 1998 to 2007, Dr. West served as CEO, President, and Chief Scientific Officer of Advanced Cell Technology, which, as Ocata Therapeutics, was acquired by Astellas Pharma of Japan in early 2016.

In 1990 Dr. West founded Geron Corp. (Nasdaq: GERN), which was probably the first regenerative medicine startup, with backing from venture capital firms from Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Venrock and others. For the company’s scientific team he recruited Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, who collectively went on to win the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and for its scientific and clinical advisory board he recruited Nobel Laureates Carol Greider and James Watson, as well as Leonard Hayflick and others. While at Geron Dr. West also created the research consortium with Drs. James Thomson and John Gearhart that led to the first isolation of human embryonic stem cells.
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Dr. West has been a member of BioTime’s Board of Directors since 2002, is a Director of Asterias Biotherapeutics (NYSE MKT: AST) and was a Director of OncoCyte Corp (NYSE MKT: OCX) from 2013 to 2016.
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Dr. West received a B.S. Degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976, an M.S. in Biology from Andrews University in 1982, and a Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 concentrating on the biology of cellular aging. He is the author of The Immortal Cell: One Scientist’s Quest to Solve the Mystery of Human Aging (DoubleDay, 2003), as well as numerous papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
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