Our Story
“At Bitterroot Foundation, our mission is to make life-saving regenerative therapies available and affordable for everyone.”
Drs Irv Weissman and Ann Tsukamoto Weissman established the nonprofit Bitterroot Foundation to unlock the full potential of purified stem cell therapies — free from the constraints of commercial interests.
With their breakthrough innovations in stem cells, the founders launched companies to support the clinical translation of purified stem cell therapies. The stem cell therapies demonstrated promising results in early clinical trials, and further development of these strategies was not continued, until now.
Bitterroot Foundation acquired and advanced the stem cell technology, and is positioned to realize the potential of regenerative stem cell therapies as well as making the technology accessible for clinical development.
Irv Weissman and Ann Tsukamoto Weissman
Decades of Discoveries impacting Regenerative Medicine
References
1. Purification and characterization of mouse hematopoietic stem cells. Spangrude, Heimfeld, Weissman. Science. 1988
2. Isolation of a candidate human hematopoietic stem-cell population. Baum, Weissman, Tsukamoto, Buckle, Peault. PNAS.1992
3. Transplantation of highly purified CD34+Thy-1+ hematopoietic stem cells in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Negrin et al. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant. 2000
4.Long-Term Outcome of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer Treated with High-Dose Chemotherapy and Transplantation of Purified Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cells. Muller et al. Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. 2012
5. Tolerance of allogeneic heart grafts in mice simultaneously reconstituted with purified allogeneic hematopoietic stem cells. Gandy, Weissman. Transplantation. 1998
6. Direct isolation of human central nervous system stem cells. Uchida, Buck, He, Reitsma, Masek, Phan, Tsukamoto, Gage, Weissman. PNAS. 2000
7. Immunologic Response, and Imaging Outcomes following Neural Stem Cell Transplantation for Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease. Gupta et al. Stem Cell Reports. 2019
8. Effect of Human Central Nervous System Stem Cell Subretinal Transplantation on Progression of Geographic Atrophy Secondary to Nonneovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Nittala et al. Ophthalmol Retina. 2021
9. Emerging Safety of Intramedullary Transplantation of Human Neural Stem Cells in Chronic Cervical and Thoracic Spinal Cord Injury. Levi et al. Neurosurgery. 2018
10. Clinical Outcomes from a Multi-Center Study of Human Neural Stem Cell Transplantation in Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury. Levi et al. J Neurotrauma. 2019
11.The Damaged Spinal Cord Is a Suitable Target for Stem Cell Transplantation. Curt et al. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair. 2020