Intro: In early 2018, STEMCELL Technologies put out a call for scientists to visit their Vancouver facilities and peer review them against their company motto of “Scientists Helping Scientists”. Out of over 300 applicants, three postdoctoral fellows were selected to form the peer review team; they visited STEMCELL in April 2018 and conducted their review over three days. In this special episode of the Stem Cell Podcast, conducted at the end of the peer review initiative, Daylon and Kiki sat down...
Jul 11, 2018•1 hr 25 min
Guest: Dr. Joseph Ciacci, MD, is a board-certified neurosurgeon with extensive experience in neuro-oncology of the spine and brain. Dr. Ciacci’s primary interests include tumors of the spine and brain, complex spinal reconstruction, and stereotactic radiosurgery, a form of radiation therapy that focuses high-power energy on a small area of the body. In this episode we talk to him about the results of his Phase I clinical trial transplanting stem cells into spinal cord injury patients. Featured R...
Jul 03, 2018•1 hr 3 min
Guest: Dr. Benjamin Freedman is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Division of Nephrology. Dr. Freedman is currently performing biomedical research using human pluripotent stem cells to model kidney disease pathophysiology and develop new therapies. In this episode we talk about his work studying kidney disease and his latest paper in Cell Stem Cell using robots to create kidney organoids. Featured Resource: Wallchart: Growing Organoids from St...
Jun 19, 2018•1 hr 11 min
Guest: Dr. Nicolas Rivron leads the Laboratory for Synthetic Embryology at the MERLN Institute for technology-driven regenerative medicine and at the Hubrecht Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research. His laboratory created the blastoid system, the first model of early, pre-implantation embryos made in a dish from stem cells. Featured Resource: STEMdiff™ Trilineage Differentiation Kit - Functional Assay Kit to Assess Pluripotency by Directed Differentiation of Human ES and iPS ...
Jun 05, 2018•1 hr 10 min
Guest: Peter Lengyel is the co-founder and “Beer Commander” of Kings County Beer Collective in Brooklyn, NY. Pete managed big name laboratories at Rockefeller University, UCSF and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals but after spending a huge amount of his time brewing beer first as a hobbyist, he made the leap to brewing full time. Pete started his first professional brewing enterprise in Bushwick Brooklyn a couple years back as a collaboration with two other brewers, which they called the King County Bre...
May 22, 2018•1 hr 7 min
Guest: Dr. Valeria Orlova is the Principal Investigator at the Leiden University Medical Center. Dr. Orlova’s lab uses stem cells to study the blood vessels and vasculature. She joins us to talk about her work and latest findings. Featured Resource: STEMdiff™ Trilineage Differentiation Kit - Functional Assay Kit to Assess Pluripotency by Directed Differentiation of Human ES and iPS Cells to All Three Germ Layers Resources and Links Plastic That Can Be Recycled Again and Again - The development o...
May 08, 2018•1 hr 5 min
Guest: Evangelos Kiskinis, PhD is an Assistant Professor in Neurology at Northwestern University. His lab focuses on addressing fundamental aspects of the biology of human neurons in the context of physiological conditions and in the context of diseases such as ALS. Featured Resource: Madeline Lancaster on Brain Organoids: Modeling Human Brain Development in a Dish Webinar Resources and Links How Norovirus Invades - While investigating the cell tropism for murine norovirus, scientists discovered...
Apr 24, 2018•1 hr 2 min
Guest: Dr. Janet Rossant is a Senior Scientist in the Developmental & Stem Cell Biology Program at The Hospital for Sick Children and is a Professor in both the Department of Molecular Genetics and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Toronto. Her research interests center on understanding the genetic control of normal and abnormal development in the early mouse embryo using both cellular and genetic manipulation techniques. Her interests in the early embryo have...
Apr 10, 2018•1 hr 5 min
Guest: Dr. Nenad Bursac talks about a technology his group has developed and tested as a candidate therapy for myocardial infarction and heart failure. Dr. Nenad Bursac’s research interests include pluripotent stem cell therapies for heart and muscle disease, cardiac and skeletal muscle tissue engineering, cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias, genetic modifications of stem and somatic cells, micropatterning of proteins and hydrogels, and organ-on-chip technologies. Featured Resource: Celebr...
Mar 29, 2018•1 hr 18 min
Guest: Dr. William Dunworth is an Account Manager at STEMCELL Technologies and will be talking about his transition from bench to industry, and what advice he has to offer in terms of careers in stem cell science beyond the bench. Featured Resource: Celebration of Science Resources and Links Study on Gun-Policy Effects Finds Important Gaps in Existing Research - One of the largest-ever studies of U.S. gun policy finds there is a shortage of evidence about the effects of most gun laws, although r...
Mar 13, 2018•1 hr 5 min
Guest Dr. Justin Ichida is the Assistant Professor in the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Southern California. Dr. Ichida’s laboratory creates in vitro models of human neurodegenerative diseases by converting patients’ cells into disease-affected neural cells. Featured Resource: Madeline Lancaster on Brain Organoids: Modeling Human Brain Development in a Dish Webinar Resources and Links New Budget Not So Bad for Science - Following a new congression...
Feb 27, 2018•1 hr 14 min
Guest Dr. Fernando Camargo is a Principal Investigator at Boston Children's Hospital and Professor in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. Dr. Camargo’s laboratory’s ultimate goal is to understand the signals that regulate adult stem cell maturation and tissue regeneration and has a strong interest in studying the cellular and molecular biology of hematopoietic stem cells. Featured Resource: Human Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cell Phenotyping Wallchart...
Feb 13, 2018•1 hr 16 min
Guest Dr. Kapil Bharti is a Principal Investigator at the National Eye Institute at the NIH. His work involves performing translational research on degenerative eye diseases using induced pluripotent stem cell technology. Dr. Bharti’s group uses this technology to develop in vitro disease models to study patient-specific disease processes, to set up high throughput drug screens, and to develop cell-based therapy for retinal degenerative diseases. Featured Resource: Extracellular Matrix News Reso...
Jan 30, 2018•1 hr 17 min
Guest Dr. April Pyle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is also a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Stem Cell Center, the Center for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA. Dr. Pyle's lab uses multi-disciplinary approaches to study human pluripotent stem cell biology and differentiation of these cells for use in regenerative medicine. Feat...
Jan 12, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Guest Dr. Michele De Luca has been involved in epithelial stem cell biology aimed at clinical applications in regenerative medicine for over 20 years. He joins the show to discuss his work and latest groundbreaking paper published in Nature. Featured Resource: Growing Organoids from Stem Cells Wallchart Resources and Links New Tax Plan Closer to Passing and Impacting Science – If the new tax plan is enacted and passed, it could limit the ability of graduate students to complete their training pr...
Dec 29, 2017•1 hr 15 min
Guest Dr. Leigh Turner is an associate professor in the center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. Turner’s research addresses ethical, legal, and regulatory issues associated with clinics engaged in direct-to-consumer marketing of unproven and unlicensed cell-based interventions. Dr. Turner is an author of numerous publications including a recent paper in Cell Stem Cell along with The Stem Cell Podcast’s past guest, Paul Knoepfler. Featured Resource: Organoid Research Resources and Li...
Dec 05, 2017•1 hr 19 min
Guest The Stem Cell Podcast and STEMCELL Technologies introduce the first interview in a new series called, "Alternative Science Careers." For the first part of this series, we are pleased to interview the host of our very own Stem Cell Podcast, Dr. Kiki Sanford. Featured Resource: Organoid Research Resources and Links In New Budget, Graduate Student Taxes Could Go Up – This editorial reports that many graduate students would face a tax hike under a clause in the federal-tax-reform bill passed b...
Nov 21, 2017•1 hr 17 min
Guest Dr. Chad Cowan is a Principal Investigator and Associate Professor in Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. Chad joins the hosts to talk about CRISPR and its uses with stem cell biology to study disease. Featured Resource: Investigating Metabolic Disease with Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Webinar Resources and Links E-Cigarettes Can Lead Teens to Higher Smoking Rates in Teens – According to this article, teens who vaped liquids containing higher concentrati...
Nov 07, 2017•1 hr 12 min
Guest Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina Medical Center, Catherine Coombs, talks to us about her work and her recent paper in Cell Stem Cell on the subject of clonal hematopoiesis. Featured Resource: Targeting Self-Renewal Function in Normal Hematopoietic and Leukemic Stem Cells Webinar Resources and Links An Estimated 124 Million Boys and Girls Are Now in the Highest Weight Range – The rising trends in children's and adolescents' BMI have plateaued in many high-...
Oct 24, 2017•1 hr 5 min
Guest Sierra Marable is a graduate student in the Molecular and Developmental Biology Graduate Program at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. She previously worked at the Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina where she became interested in stem cell research while researching induced pluripotent stem cells as a method for modeling development and disease at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Sierra joins the ...
Oct 10, 2017•1 hr
Guest: Dr. Jack Parent is a professor of neurology, director of the Neurodevelopment and Regeneration Laboratory, and co-director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in the University of Michigan Medical School. Featured Resource: CloneR™ Defined Supplement for Single-Cell Cloning of Human ES and iPS Cells Resources and Links Potential Role of Intratumor Bacteria in Mediating Tumor Resistance to the Chemotherapeutic Drug Gemcitabine – Tumor cells grown with bacteria could stave off a common che...
Sep 26, 2017•1 hr 8 min
Guest: For the interview portion of the show of our 100th episode, we welcome Kevin McCormack from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM, to talk about all of CIRM’s progress, past, present, and future...CIRM was created in 2004 to translate stem cell discoveries into therapies, and we will talk to Kevin about the progress this funding has made. Featured Resource: mTeSR™1 cGMP, Feeder-Free Maintenance Medium for Human ES and iPS Cells Resources and Links First Hurricane Harv...
Sep 12, 2017•1 hr 8 min
Guest: Dr. Chandan Sen is Professor and Vice Chair of Research, Department of Surgery at The Ohio State University Medical Center. Dr. Sen’s program is focused on tissue injury and repair. His group works across small and large animal models, to human and patient-based research. Resources and Links Embryos Kill Off Male Tissue to Become Female – A protein called COUP-TFII is necessary to eliminate male reproductive tissue from female mouse embryos. How an Itch Makes Its Way to Your Brain – Scien...
Aug 29, 2017•1 hr 9 min
Guest: Dr. Dustin Wakeman is Senior Research Scientist at RxGen and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Wakeman focuses his career on determining the long-term therapeutic value of stem cell therapy in neurodegenerative disorders. His interests include stem cell-based therapeutics, disease modeling, neural transplantation, and morphological and molecular changes in aging and neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson's, Huntington's, Alzheimer's and more. Featured Res...
Aug 15, 2017•1 hr 13 min
Guest: Dr. Mark Tomishima is an Associate Laboratory Member and Sloan Kettering Institute Stem Cell Research Facility Manager. Mark joins us to talk about all things stem cells, including his latest published work on standardizing protocols that start with pluripotent stem cells. Featured Resource: FreSR™-S Animal Component-Free Medium for Freezing ES and iPS Cells as Single Cells Resources and Links Cows to Produce HIV Antibodies – This article reveals that in a first for any animal, including ...
Aug 01, 2017•1 hr 12 min
Guest: Dr. Robert Hancock is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, UBC, and a Canada Research Chair in Health and Genomics. Bob has published more than 660 papers and reviews, and has 50 patents awarded. The fundamental interest of Dr. Hancock and his laboratory is in designing new therapeutic strategies to treat infections in the light of increasing antibiotic resistance coupled with a dearth of new antibiotic discovery. Recently his team and their collaborators at the University of Briti...
Jul 18, 2017•1 hr 11 min
Guest: Dr. Darrell Kotton is a David C. Seldin Professor of Medicine and works as the Director in the Center for Regenerative Medicine of Boston University and Boston Medical Center. Dr. Kotton’s research focuses on stem cell biology and gene therapy related to lung injury and repair. Dr. Kotton’s laboratory currently utilizes several stem cell populations, including bone marrow-derived stem cells and embryonic stem cells in order to develop novel stem cell-based therapies for lung disease. In a...
Jul 04, 2017•1 hr 4 min
Guest: In this episode, we welcome Drs. Shahin Rafii and Raphael Lis. Dr. Rafii is director of the Ansary Stem Cell Institute, chief of the Division of Regenerative Medicine, and the Arthur B. Belfer Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine. His lab investigates stem cell biology and angiogenesis using in vivo mouse models. Dr. Lis who was the first author on their recent Nature paper and is an Instructor in Medicine and the TRI-SCi Flow Cytometry Core Manager at Weill Cornell Medicine. Featured Reso...
Jun 20, 2017•1 hr 21 min
Guest: Dr. Clive Svendsen is the Director of the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute and Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Cedar Sinai Medical Center. One focus of his current research is to derive cells from patients with specific disorders, which can then be “reprogrammed” to a primitive state and used as powerful models of human disease. The other side of his research involves cutting edge clinical trials. Featured Resource: iCell® Human iPSC-Derived Products Resources and Li...
Jun 06, 2017•1 hr 5 min
Guest: Dr. Farshid Guilak, a Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University and Director of Research for the Shriners Hospitals for Children. His laboratory is pursuing a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the etiology and pathogenesis of osteoarthritis, as a basis for the development of new pharmacologic and stem-cell therapies. Featured Resource: Mesenchymal Stem and Progenitor Cell Research Resources and Links Toddlers’ Screen Time Linked to Speech Delays a...
May 23, 2017•1 hr 8 min
