Tissera Inc. is a public company based in Washington and is committed to developing, testing and commercializing tissue transplantation therapies based on an approach employing organ-specific precursor tissues. Tissera is currently in advanced stages of development to surmount these obstacles and provide tissue transplant solutions for many health problems not effectively treated today.
Tissera is dedicated to the advancement of a new era in tissue transplantation with precursor transplant technology. Progress in transplantation technologies has improved and lengthened the lives of tens of thousands of people. However, the shortage of donor tissue forces patients to wait years for a suitable organ. In addition, the heavy immune suppression needed to ascertain engraftment is associated with long term complications.
The Tissera technology developed at the Weizman Institute of Science is described in a landmark study published in Nature Medicine magazine. It provides hope for effectively treating gene deficiencies and a great variety of diseases. http://www.nature.com/leu/journal/v16/n3/full/2402382a.html
Tissera's transplant technology minimizes the need for immunosuppressive drugs. Tissera's future tissue products will potentially be available on demand - eliminating the need to wait years for organ transplantation. The company is conducting its research and development activities through Tissera Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary, located in Israel.
Tissera's approach involves harvesting embryonic mammalian tissue at the earliest stage at which stem cells commit to becoming organ-specific precursor tissues and transplanting them in target organ systems. The fundamental concept is to make use of natural growth and differentiation in vivo and to treat a range of diseases avoiding isolation, culturing, expansion or genetically engineering tissues or cells. Proof of principle was demonstrated in experiments conducted in Prof. Reisner’s lab at the Weizmann Institute and described in Nature Medicine (December 2002). These experiments showed that kidney precursor cells harvested from human and porcine embryos and implanted in mice grow and undergo complete nephrogenesis.
Tissera's novel technology also demonstrated reduced host immune response so that a minimum of immunosuppressant drugs is required even in cross-species transplants (“xenotransplants”). Current research conducted involves transplantation of kidney liver and pancreas tissues. Research in progress is directed to further developing the technology as well as extending its applications.
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