Dr. Michael West is the Chief Executive Officer of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE MKT: AGE). AgeX Therapeutics is focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics targeting human aging.

He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 concentrating on the biology of cellular aging. He has focused his academic and business career on the application of developmental biology to the age-related degenerative disease.

He was the founder and first CEO of Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, California (NASDAQ: GERN) and from 1992 to 1998 he was a Director, and Vice President, where he initiated and managed programs in telomerase diagnostics, oligonucleotide-based telomerase inhibition as anti-tumor therapy, and the cloning and use of telomerase in telomerase-mediated therapy wherein telomerase is utilized to immortalize human cells.

From 1995 to 1998 he organized and managed the research collaboration between Geron and its academic collaborators James Thomson and John Gearhart that led to the first isolation of human embryonic stem and human embryonic germ cells.

From 1998 to 2007 he was President and Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. now Ocata Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OCAT) where he managed programs in nuclear transfer, retinal differentiation, and PureStemTM, a technology for the multiplex derivation and characterization of diverse clonal human embryonic progenitor cell lines.

In 2013 he led BioTime’s efforts to acquire Geron’s stem cell assets through the subsidiary Asterias Biotherapeutics (NYSE MKT: AST).