Stem cell stars found company to reprogram adult cells

Some of Boston's heavy hitters in stem cell biology announced today that they have launched a company to commercialize technology that will reprogram mature adult cells into stem cells.

Dr. David Scadden of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Leonard Zon of Harvard University and Children's Hospital Boston are among the founders of Fate Therapeutics. Biomedical engineers Robert Langer and Ram Sasisekharan of MIT will sit on the new biotech's scientific advisory board. The Waltham venture capital company Polaris Venture Partners is a founding investor, with general partner Amir Nashat taking a seat on its board of directors.

The company has a facility in Seattle, and plans to open other offices soon in the Boston area as well as in California.

Fate plans to develop drugs to "awaken" adult stem cells in the body to repair damaged tissues, as well as drugs that turn back the clock in mature cells, bringing them back to the stem cell stage when they have the capacity to grow into other kinds of cells in the body, the company said in a news release. This avoids the use of embryonic stem cells, which is opposed by some because the work entails destruction of early-stage embryos.

The company said its first drug candidate would be cancer-related, but it also expects to target other diseases.

Other principals in the company come from Stanford, the University of Washington and the Scripps Research Institute. Other venture capital investors are ARCH Venture Partners, Venrock and OVP.