Method for testing iPSC

During recent collaboration, two companies, Atlas Regeneration and Insilico Medicine, demonstrated the close resemblance of iPSCs with ESCs at the pathway level, and provided examples of how pathway activity analysis can be applied to identify iPSC line abnormalities or to predict in vitro differentiation potential. The results indicate that pathway activation profiling is a promising strategy for evaluating the safety and potency of iPSC lines in translational medicine applications allowing scientists to test differentiation abilities of many iPSC lines in silico while saving valuable time for patients waiting for treatment.

Evgeny Makarev, Ph.D, COO of Atlas Regeneration, Inc., the leader of the study, said, "Regeneration Intelligence is unique among pathway analysis platforms. Using our algorithm along with proprietary pathway database, we established for the first time pathway activation profiles of iPS. We reused data from publically available gene expression data sets and evaluated signaling and metabolic pathway activation profiles for 20 human embryonic stem cell (ESC) lines, 12 human iPSC lines. Consequently, we identified PAS quality score lines as a novel prognostic biomarker that can identify impaired iPSC lines."

Anthony Atala, MD, CEO of Atlas Regeneration said, "Our Regeneration Intelligence platform has been used in many iPSC lines and is helping stem cells biologist to improve and speed up decision-making. Unfortunately, the entire process of verification and validation of differentiation abilities using in vitro differentiation assays typically takes 12 weeks and time is critical for definitive treatment, especially in urgent cases. With the help of Regeneration Intelligence, we may be able to significantly reduce the time and cost of the process."

About Atlas Regeneration, Inc.
 
Atlas Regeneration is a Winston Salem, N.C.-based company utilizing advances in multiomics and big data analysis for drug discovery and regeneration targeting aging and age-related diseases. The company utilizes the Regeneration Intelligence™ and PharmAtlas™ packages for pathway analysis in aging and stem cells research, pursues internal drug discovery programs, and provides services to pharmaceutical companies. For more info please visit http://atlasregeneration.com

 About Insilico Medicine, Inc. 

A company dedicated to finding novel solutions for cancer, aging and age-related diseases using advances in genomics and big data analysis.  
http://www.insilicomedicine.com/ 

Atlas Regeneration Inc, New Company Focusing on Regeneration Bioinformatics and Regeneration Pharmacology, Has Officially Launched

Atlas Regeneration Inc, a company dedicated to developing novel software platforms and algorithms for drug discovery relating to regenerative medicine and stem cell research, has officially launched. Atlas has partnered with InSilico Medicine, a Baltimore based bioinformatics company, which employs its state of the art Geroscope platform to select and rate personalized anti-aging therapies and identify new drug candidates in longevity.

Aging is an issue that effects all people around the globe universally, but as the babyboomer generation ages, the stress that it places on society becomes greater and the need develop methods for people to remain productive as they age rises in turn. Aging is a very complex multifactorial process that cannot be stopped or reversed by a simple combination of drugs, which is why it is important to develop personalized treatments tailored to individual subjects. The pharmaceutical industry needs a platform to effectively utilize and clinically implement stem cells technology.

Another angle the new company is concentrating on screening and predicting the effectiveness of possible regeneration-inducing drugs in a high-throughput environment to at least slow some of the aging processes by stimulating natural tissues regeneration potential. Some of the known drugs have been on the market for many decades and only recently have scientists started finding clues to their anti-inflammation, regeneration and geroprotective effects. There is an urgent need for intelligent systems that will cost-effectively predict the effectiveness of the many drugs on individual tissue, organ and organism levels.

One of the reasons why pharmaceutical companies failed to develop business models for increasing productive human longevity and organ regeneration using iPSC technology is because iPS cells have serious safety and differentiation limitation and it takes several weeks to evaluate safety and the differentiation potential of each particular cell line. 

Some of the ideas behind the company’s bioinformatics platforms for both regeneration, iPS and aging are rather simple: analyze all available omics profiles of “cells-in-progress” (iPSC line under evaluation, cells/tissues under treatment and so on) and targeted counterpart cells in mature healthy tissues or organs, run computer simulations based on proprietary pathway map to see what drugs or treatments make the old or undifferentiated cell get as close to the norm/healthy counterparts as possible and then validate the results on human cells and model organisms. The same approach may be employed to personalize the drug regimen for individual patients. The core parts of the technology are proprietary signaling pathway map, a unique scoring algorithm along with well-developed biological models which allows us to use all-inclusive gene expression analysis, including microRNA, methylation and proteomics modules among others, and a comprehensive constantly updated drug database. 

“We built our platform, Regeneration Intelligence, on years of experience in regenerative medicine and pharmacology, de novo organ regeneration, body-on-the chip technology just to mention a few of them with a one single goal: develop a reliable tool to convert multi-omics data from individual patient’s tissues into unified drug score to predict the effectiveness of targeted compounds and improve clinical decision making, unified iPSC lines score to predict differentiation potential and evaluate clinical safety,” said Anthony Atala, MD, the CEO of Atlas Regeneration. “We are reinventing this system for drug discovery in regeneration medicine and aging to more effectively employ big data to find solutions for aging, competing with the Google’s Calico and Human Longevity companies, to deliver hope that we may see the time when our mutual efforts will start saving lives and increase life span via regeneration in adult humans.”

About Atlas Regeneration Inc

In last couple years the Atlas Regeneration team has worked hard to develop the most advanced pathway analysis algorithm (Regeneration Intelligences) and the most comprehensive scalable drug knowledge management system of annotated drugs, small molecules, biologics and all other actionable factors (Universal Signalome Atlas). For more information, please visit: http://www.AtlasRegeneration.com

Geroprotectors

Geroprotectors are interventions that aim to prevent, slow, or reverse the processes of aging in model organisms or humans such that the lifespan, and especially the healthy lifespan, can be extended. They can target any one of many pathways and gene networks involved in aging. However, because this is new territory for medical science geroprotectors and their effects remain largely uncatalogued.

Insilico Medicine, a company specializing in drug repurposing in cancer and bioinformatics of aging based at the Emerging Technology Centers at the Johns Hopkins University contributed to the development of Geroprotectors.org. This web-based knowledge management system is billed as a structured and curated database of therapeutic interventions in aging and age related diseases. 

The database does more than simply list geroprotectors, it catalogs over 250 experiments involving over 200 known or candidate geroprotectors. Each compound has a comprehensive profile complete with biochemistry, mechanisms, and lifespan effects in various model organisms with information ranging from chemical structure, side effects, and toxicity to FDA drug status. It also links back to the original research, making it possible for gerontologists to collaborate more quickly and efficiently than they ever could before.

"Geroprotectors is one of the timeliest and exciting areas of biomedical research since these have the potential to impact on multiple age-related maladies. By compiling what is known about this topic, Geroprotectors.org will be a great asset for researchers and even clinicians to ultimately allow people to benefit from recent discoveries in manipulating the aging process", said de Magalhaes, who heads the Integrative Genomics of Ageing Group, Institute of Integrative Biology at the University of Liverpool and is a trustee of the Biogerontology Research Foundation.

"The motivation behind creation of Geroprotectors database was to provide a one-stop resource for researchers interested in anti-aging compounds, saving countless hours of data mining, literature review and expert analysis. It took us several years of careful literature mining and discussions with industry experts to create this database," said Alexey Moskalev, lead author of the paper, head of laboratory of molecular radiobiology and gerontology, IBKSCUB RAS and adjunct professor at George Mason University and a scientific advisor to Insilico Medicine.

About Insilico Medicine, Inc

Insilico Medicine, Inc. is a bioinformatics company located at the Emerging Technology Centers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore utilizing advances in genomics and big data analysis for in silico drug discovery and drug repurposing for aging and age-related diseases. The company utilizes the GeroScope(TM), OncoFinder(TM), Pathway Cloud Intelligence(TM) and PharmAtlas(TM) packages for aging and cancer research, pursues internal drug discovery programs, and provides services to pharmaceutical companies. For more information on Insilico Medicine’s use of NVIDIA GPU Technology, please visit: http://goo.gl/u3J0CF