Translational Medicine
Open Access

Robert J Deans

Biography

Dr Deans is responsible for regenerative medicine technology development at Athersys Inc and its European subsidiary ReGenesys Athersys is developing cell therapeutics based on adherent stem cells. Multi Stemisolated from adult bone marrowAthersys has active Phase I and II clinical development activity in acute myocardial infarct stroke ulcerative colitis and for adjunctive therapy of allogeneic bone marrow transplant. Dr Deans has more than 20years experience in stem cell therapeutics having previously served at Osiris. Therapeuticsas VP of Research Dr Deans was previously Director of RD at Baxter Healthcare where he developed biological components of the Isolex300i hematopoietic stem cell purification platformIn addition. Dr Deans served on the faculty at USC Medical School from 1984 to 1992 . He holds degrees from MIT and the University of Michigan and postdoctoral training in molecular immunology at UCLA.

Research Interest

Dr. Deans charge in the Immunotherapy Division was to develop a new biological reagent kit for the magnetic bead/monoclonal antibody capture of bone marrow and peripheral blood CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells. Using phage display technology, a small peptide mimetic of the epitope of an anti CD34 monoclonal antibody was derived and affinity matured through computationally directed mutagenesis for use as a competitive release reagent of the antibody/cell complex.