BioTime, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on regenerative medicine and blood plasma volume expanders, and its subsidiary, LifeMap Sciences, have released enhanced LifeMap BioReagents portal (http://bioreagents.lifemapsc.com/) which features an improved user interface, product descriptions, and customer support options, as well as the addition of new PureStem progenitor cells to the site. These novel progenitors provide new and unique tools for researchers to study developmental biology, tissue genesis and regenerative medicine, demonstrating purity in culture and unique gene expression.

Among the new product offerings are novel PureStem progenitor cells such as the E72 cells capable of differentiating into betatrophin-expressing adipocytes, which may be useful in diabetes research.

Via LifeMap BioReagents, researchers in academia, research hospitals, and biotech and pharma companies can access and purchase BioTime's research products, including PureStem human progenitor cells, PureStem packages, clinical and research grade human embryonic stem cell (hES) lines, culture media, and cell differentiation kits. As of April, the portal also offers select recombinant proteins, including growth factors, signaling molecules, differentiation factors, cytokines and chemokines that complement BioTime research product lines.

LifeMap BioReagents is integrated with LifeMap's integrated database suite products LifeMap Discovery, GeneCards and MalaCards, thereby providing all biomedical researchers accessing these databases a means of identifying stem cell reagents that can enhance research and discovery efforts in a variety of fields, including stem cell research, developmental biology, mechanisms of various human diseases, drug discovery and therapeutic discovery and development. According to Google Analytics, the sites have generated more than 2,000,000 unique visitors with more than 13,000,000 page views in the past 12 months.

LifeMap holds an exclusive, worldwide license from Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd., the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science, to market GeneCards, the human gene compendium, and MalaCards, a database with nearly 17,000 human disease entries.

"The diversity, purity, and scalability of PureStem cells combined with the continued discovery process underway at BioTime, where novel differentiation pathways are being defined, gives us a growing opportunity to market these products in the research sector," said Jeffrey Janus, vice president of Sales and Marketing at BioTime. "This is an exciting beginning to a new era in stem cell research. In combination with the LifeMap integrated database suite, our embryonic progenitors will provide researchers a unique new set of products to make novel clinical discoveries and advance the field of regenerative medicine."

Yaron Guan-Golan, Head of Marketing at LifeMap Sciences said, "We are pleased to continue the expansion and enhancement of our e-Commerce portal." Golan further added, "Our growing user base will have improved access to our product portfolio via LifeMap BioReagents. The addition of PureStem human progenitor lines, including cell types targeting the hottest new research in diabetes, will increase LifeMap BioReagents brand awareness and the quality of our offering to the global biomedical research community."

LifeMap Sciences' core technology and business is based on its integrated database suite, the discovery platform for biomedical and stem cell research.

BioTime is a biotechnology company focused on regenerative medicine and blood plasma volume expanders.