BioTime awarded NIH grant to aid Hetacool d...( BERKELEY CA April 21 2004 -- BioTime...)

BERKELEY, CA, April 21, 2004 -- BioTime, Inc. (AMEX:BTX) announced that it has been awarded a research grant by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for use in the development of its HetaCool blood plasma volume expander following peer review. The grant will be used to fund a project entitled "Resuscitating Blood-Substituted Hypothermic Dogs" at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston under the guidance of Dr. George V. Letsou. Dr. Letsou is Associate Professor of Surgery and Director of the Heart Failure Center at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, Texas. BioTime may receive up to $299,990 through the grant, including $149,994 during 2004 and -- subject to availability of funds and satisfactory progress on the project -- an additional $149,996 during 2005.

HetaCool is specifically designed for use at low temperatures. The goal of the BioTime research project is to use HetaCool to increase the time during which a patient may be maintained in hypothermic cardiac and circulatory arrest during surgery. In the research project, the body temperature of dogs will be lowered to reduce their metabolic rate and related need for oxygenating red blood cells, while HetaCool will be used to replace the circulating blood to prevent the blockage of small blood vessels caused by the "sludging" of blood at low temperatures.

During surgical procedures for the treatment of certain cardiovascular conditions such as large aneurysms, cardiovascular abnormalities and damaged blood vessels in the brain, surgeons must temporarily interrupt the flow of blood through the body. Interruption of blood flow can be maintained only for short periods of time at normal body temperatures because many critical organs, particularly the brain, are quickly damaged by the resultant loss of oxygen. As a result, certain surgical procedures are performed at low temperatures because lower body temperature helps to m
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Contact: Judith Segall
jsegall@biotimemail.com
510-845-9535
BioTime, Inc.
27-Apr-2004

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