Local biotech firm shares $500,000 grant

NuPotential, a local biotech firm, will share a nearly $500,000 grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop safer means of generating stem cells from adult cells. NuPotential will share the grant with VistaGen Therapeutics of San Francisco. NuPotential, based in the Louisiana Emerging Technology Center on the LSU campus, “reprograms” existing adult cells to maintain the properties of embryonic stem cells. The company uses small, molecule-based cell-reprogramming processes instead of retroviruses or cancer-inducing oncogenes. Using retroviruses and oncogenes is problematic for clinical applications of the resulting new stem cells because those cells carry a higher risk of turning cancerous. Stem cells can turn into any of the more than 200 different types of cells in the body, making them useful for regenerative medicine. NuPotential, co-founded in 2006 by Dr. Kenneth Eilertsen of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, has received more than $2.5 million in grant funding for research and development.