The 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO), “Concept to Commercialization of Organ Replacement & Repair Therapies,” will be held at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco, California, in June 19-21, 2008.

HepaLife Technologies, Inc. announced that the Company will present new data from ongoing research and development of its artificial liver device technology in three presentations at the conference.
Among industry insiders and researchers, the ASAIO Annual Meeting is reputed as the premier scientific and business gathering for new discoveries in the development of artificial internal organ technologies. Notably, ASAIO members include the inventors of the artificial kidney, the heart-lung machine that made open heart surgery possible, and the first artificial heart.
“It’s an honor to be invited to present our exciting technology at this prestigious meeting,” stated Mr. Frank Menzler, President and CEO of HepaLife Technologies, Inc. “In recent months, our research team has made tremendous progress on both the hardware components of our bioartificial liver device, and our patented PICM-19 liver stem cell line which is seeded inside the device to mimic the biological functions of the liver. We very much look forward to sharing new data from our bioartificial liver program with the scientific community.”
HepaLife’s presentations at the ASAIO Annual Meeting include:
1. “Bioartificial Liver Device Utilizing the PICM-19 Porcine Liver Stem Cell Line,” presented by F. Menzler, President & CEO, HepaLife Technologies, Inc.
2. “Morphology and Metabolic Activity of a Porcine Liver Stem Cell Line (PICM-19) Maintained in a Multicompartment Hollow Fiber Bioreactor for Two Weeks,” presented by R. Willard, USDA, ARS-ABBL
3. “Characterization of PICM-19H Porcine Liver Stem Cell Line for Potential Use in a Bioartificial Liver,” presented by R. Willard, USDA, ARS-ABBL
HepaLife™ Bioartificial Liver
Intended for the treatment of liver failure, the HepaLife™ Bioartificial Liver device consists of three basic components: (1) a plasma filter, separating the patient’s blood into blood plasma and blood cells; (2) the bioreactor, a unit filled with the patented PICM-19 liver stem cell line which biologically mimics the liver’s function; and (3) the HepaDrive™, a perfusion system for pumping the patient's plasma through the bioreactor while controlling gas supply and temperature for best possible performance of the cells.
Positive results from recent in-vitro tests of HepaLife's proprietary bioartificial liver were announced last month. Researchers "seeded" the Company's patented PICM-19 liver cells inside its artificial liver device and favorably demonstrated the important ability to reduce levels of toxic ammonia by 75% in fewer than 24 hours, a feature considered necessary to the successful treatment of acute liver failure using an artificial liver. In contrast to HepaLife's early preclinical results, published in-vivo data from clinical trials of systems utilizing liver cells other than the Company's PICM-19 have only reported ammonia reduction levels between 0 to 44%.
American Society of Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO)
The Annual Conference of the American Society of Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) draws up to 800 attendees with a broad range of primary interests. This Conference includes presentations from over 400 speakers from more than a dozen countries. ASAIO’s Conference is unique in that it provides a forum for individual researchers to present not only to fellow investigators, but also to members of industry and to government representatives who will be involved in regulatory affairs as the projects are developed into the production of clinical devices. Among ASAIO’s members are the inventors of the artificial kidney, the heart-lung machine that made open heart surgery possible and the first artificial heart.
ABOUT HEPALIFE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Based in Boston, Massachusetts, HepaLife Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:HPLF - News) (FWB:HL1) (WKN:500625) is a developer of cell-based medical technologies addressing prevalent human health concerns.
Current cell-based technologies under development by HepaLife include 1) the first-of-its-kind artificial liver device, 2) proprietary in-vitro toxicology and pre-clinical drug testing platforms, and 3) novel cell-culture-based vaccine production methods for the manufacture of vaccines against H5N1 avian influenza and other viruses.