Mammalian cells that have increased proliferative capacity

Patent Number: 7,195,911

This patent covers the expansion of telomeres in a wide variety of human cells using the telomerase reverse transcriptase. This patent belongs to a family of earlier Geron patents covering the overcoming of telomere shortening through induction of "telomerase" activity into cells.

The IP field of telomerase is pretty crowded and this patent has to be read carefully by those interested in this area.

An important side-note is that there are published descriptions of inducing telomerase activity in cells by chemical (Hou et al. The histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin A derepresses the telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) gene in human cells.Exp Cell Res. 2002 Mar 10;274(1):25-34) or hormonal manipulations (Imanishi et al. Estrogen reduces endothelial progenitor cell senescence through augmentation of telomerase activity. J Hypertens. 2005 Sep;23(9):1699-706).

View this patent on the USPTO website.