Robert Lanza

Lanza was part of the team that cloned the world's first early stage human embryos,[3][4] as well as the first to successfully generate stem cells from adults using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (therapeutic cloning).[5][6]

Lanza demonstrated that techniques used in preimplantation genetic diagnosis could be used to generate embryonic stem cells without embryonic destruction.[7]

In 2001, he was also the first to clone an endangered species (a Gaur),[8] and in 2003, he cloned an endangered wild ox (a Banteng)[9] from the frozen skin cells of an animal that had died at the San Diego Zoo nearly a quarter-of-a-century earlier.

Lanza and his colleagues were the first to demonstrate that nuclear transplantation could be used to reverse the aging process[10] and to generate immune-compatible tissues, including the first organ grown in the laboratory from cloned cells.[11]

Lanza showed that it is feasible to generate functional oxygen-carrying red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells under conditions suitable for clinical scale-up. The blood cells could potentially serve as a source of "universal" blood.[12][13]

His team discovered how to generate functional hemangioblasts (a population of "ambulance" cells[14]) from human embryonic stem cells. In animals, these cells quickly repaired vascular damage, cutting the death rate after a heart attack in half and restoring the blood flow to ischemic limbs that might otherwise have required amputation.[15]

In 2012 Lanza and a team led by Kwang-Soo Kim at Harvard University reported a method for generating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells by incubating them with proteins, instead of genetically manipulating the cells to make more of those proteins.[16][17][18]

Lanza's team at Advanced Cell Technology were able to generate retinal pigmented epithelium cells from stem cells, and subsequent studies found that these cells could restore vision in animal models of macular degeneration.[19][20] With this technology, some forms of blindness could potentially be treatable.[21]

In 2010, ACT received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for clinical trials of a pluripotent stem cell-based treatment for use in people with degenerative eye diseases.[22][23] In 2011 ACT received approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to use its PSC-based cell therapy in the UK; this was the first approval to study a PSC-based treatment in Europe.[24][25] The first person received the embryonic stem cell treatment in the UK in 2012.[26]

The results of the first two clinical trials were published in the Lancet in 2012,[27] with a follow up paper in 2014,[28] which provided the first published reports of the long-term safety and possible biologic activity of pluripotent stem cell progeny into humans.[29]

In 2007 Lanza's article "A New Theory of the Universe" appeared in The American Scholar.[30] The essay addressed Lanza's idea of a biocentric universe, which places biology above the other sciences.[31][32][33] Lanza's book Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the Universe followed in 2009, co-written with Bob Berman.[34] In 2016 a second book, Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death was published. Lanza has since announced a third book continuing his scientific research into Biocentrism titled The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality.

Lanza's biocentric hypothesis met with a mixed reception.[35] Spirituality author Deepak Chopra called "Lanza's insights into the nature of consciousness original and exciting" and stated that "his theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient wisdom traditions of the world which says that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world. It is the ground of our Being in which both subjective and objective reality come into existence."[36]

Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine) E. Donnall Thomas stated that "Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work. The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole."[37] Arizona State University physicist and antitheist activist Lawrence Krauss stated: "It may represent interesting philosophy, but it doesn't look, at first glance, as if it will change anything about science."[38] In USA Today Online, astrophysicist and science writer David Lindley asserted that Lanza's concept was a "...vague, inarticulate metaphor..." and stated that "...I certainly don't see how thinking his way would lead you into any new sort of scientific or philosophical insight. That's all very nice, I would say to Lanza, but now what?"[39] Daniel Dennett, a Tufts University philosopher and eliminative materialist, said he did not think the concept meets the standard of a philosophical theory. "It looks like an opposite of a theory, because he doesn't explain how it [ consciousness ] happens at all. He's stopping where the fun begins."[40] The later comments were made about the original essay that appeared in The American Scholar.[30] back in 2007. However, Lanza subsequently published several books that further developed his concept of biocentrism.[41][42][43] Referring to his latest book, co-authored with theoretical physicist Matej Pavsic, Kirkus Reviews stated, “its notions are exciting ones, and they do a sound job of linking them to observable, replicable experiments.”[44]

• 1984 Heart Transplantation: The Present Status of Orthotopic and Heterotopic Heart Transplantation ISBN 0-85200-862-7
• 1985 Medical Science and the Advancement of World Health ISBN 0-03-071734-5
• 1994 Pancreatic Islet Transplantation: Volume I Procurement of Pancreatic Islets ISBN 1-57059-133-4
• 1994 Pancreatic Islet Transplantation: Volume II Immunomodulation of Pancreatic Islets ISBN 1-57059-134-2
• 1994 Pancreatic Islet Transplantation: Volume III Immunoisolation of Pancreatic Islets ISBN 1-57059-135-0
• 1996 One World: The Health and Survival of the Human Species in the 21st Century ISBN 0-929173-33-3
• 1996 Yearbook of Cell and Tissue Transplantation ISBN 0-7923-3844-8
• 1997 Principles of Tissue Engineering ISBN 1-57059-342-6
• 1999 Cell Encapsulation Technology and Therapeutics ISBN 0-8176-4010-X
• 2000 Xeno: The Promise of Transplanting Animal Organs into Humans ISBN 0-19-512833-8
• 2000 Principles of Tissue Engineering, Second Edition ISBN 0-12-436630-9
• 2002 Methods of Tissue Engineering ISBN 0-12-436636-8
• 2002 Principles of Cloning ISBN 0-12-174597-X
• 2004 Handbook of Stem Cells: Volume 1 Embryonic Stem Cells ISBN 0-12-436642-2
• 2004 Handbook of Stem Cells: Volume 2 Adult and Fetal Stem Cells ISBN 0-12-436644-9
• 2006 Essentials of Stem Cell Biology ISBN 0-12-088442-9
• 2006 Methods in Enzymology: Volume 418 Embryonic Stem Cells ISBN 0-12-373648-X
• 2006 Methods in Enzymology: Volume 419 Adult Stem Cells ISBN 0-12-373650-1
• 2006 Methods in Enzymology: Volume 420 Stem Cell Tools and Other Experimental Protocols ISBN 0-12-373651-X
• 2007 Principles of Tissue Engineering, Third Edition ISBN 0-12-370615-7
• 2008 Principles of Regenerative Medicine ISBN 978-0-12-369410-2
• 2009 Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the Universe ISBN 978-1-933771-69-4
• 2009 Essential Stem Cell Methods ISBN 978-0-12-374741-9
• 2009 Essentials of Stem Cell Biology, Second Edition ISBN 978-0-12-374729-7
• 2020 The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality ISBN 978-1950665402
• 2009 Foundations of Regenerative Medicine ISBN 978-0-12-375085-3
• 2010 Principles of Regenerative Medicine, Second Edition ISBN 978-0-12-381422-7
• 2012 Handbook of Stem Cells: Volume 1 Embryonic Stem Cells, Second Edition ISBN 0-12-385942-5
• 2012 Handbook of Stem Cells: Volume 2 Adult and Fetal Stem Cells, Second Edition ISBN 978-0-12-385942-6
• 2013 Principles of Cloning, Second Edition ISBN 978-0-12-386541-0
• 2013 Principles of Tissue Engineering, Fourth Edition ISBN 978-0-12-398358-9
• 2013 Essentials of Stem Cell Biology, Third Edition ISBN 978-0-12-409503-8
• 2016 Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death ISBN 978-1942952213
• 2017 Cellular Therapies for Retinal Disease ISBN 978-3319494777
• 2018 Principles of Regenerative Medicine, Third Edition ISBN 978-0128098806
• 2020 Principles of Tissue Engineering, Fifth Edition ISBN 978-0128184226
• 2020 The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality ISBN 978-1950665402