Michael West

Michael D. West, PhD, is a gerontologist, who has devoted his entire career to unraveling the mysteries of longevity. West is a pioneer in stem cells, cellular aging and telomere research. He is the founder and CEO of AgeX which provide regenerative medicine clinical trials.

Dr. West joined AgeX's parent company, BioTime, as CEO in 2007, and he continues to serve as the company's co-CEO while devoting 80% of his time to AgeX. In 2014, he served as CEO of Asterias Biotherapeutics. From 1998 to 2007, he served as CEO, president and chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology, which, as Ocata Therapeutics, was acquired by Astellas Pharma of Japan in early 2016.

In 1990 Dr. West founded Geron Corp, one of the first regenerative medicine companies, with backing from venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins, Venrock, and others. For the company’s scientific team he recruited Drs. Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, who collectively went on to win the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. While at Geron, Dr. West also created the research consortium with James Thomson and John Gearhart that led to the first isolation of human embryonic stem cells.

West received a BS degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976, an MS in biology from Andrews University in 1982, and a Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989, concentrating on the biology of cellular aging.

West has been a keynote speaker at events including World Stem Cell and is associated with 146 patents in the United States, Australia, Japan and elsewhere. He is the author of numerous papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and The Immortal Cell: One Scientist's Quest to Solve the Mystery of Human Aging (2003).