ISSCR : 2010 Annual Meeting

Chair Sean J. Morrison, PhD
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Henry Sewall Professor in Medicine
Director, University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology

The Morrison laboratory studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate stem cell function in the nervous and hematopoietic systems.

Dr. Morrison obtained his B.Sc. in biology and chemistry from Dalhousie University (1991), then completed a Ph.D. in immunology at Stanford University (1996), and a postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiology at Caltech (1999). Since 1999, Dr. Morrison has been at the University of Michigan, where his laboratory studies the mechanisms that regulate stem cell self-renewal and stem cell aging, as well as the role these mechanisms play in cancer. Dr. Morrison was a Searle Scholar (2000-2003), was named to Technology Review Magazine's list of 100 young innovators (2002), received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2003), the International Society for Hematology and Stem Cell's McCulloch and Till Award (2007) and the American Association of Anatomists Harland Mossman Award (2008). Dr. Morrison has also been active in public policy issues surrounding stem cells. Most recently, Dr. Morrison was a leader in the successful "Proposal 2" campaign to protect stem cell research in Michigan's state constitution.

Hans C. Clevers, MD, PhD

From 1991-2002 Hans Clevers was Professor in Immunology at the University of Utrecht and, since 2002, Professor in Molecular Genetics. Since 2002, he is Director of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht.

Hans Clevers obtained his MD degree in 1984 and his PhD degree in 1985 from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. His postdoctoral work (1986-1989) was done with Cox Terhorst at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of the Harvard University, Boston, USA. Hans Clevers has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2000 and is the recipient of several awards, including the Dutch Spinoza Award in 2001, the Swiss Louis Jeantet Prize in 2004, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Katharine Berkan Judd Award in 2005, the Israeli Rabbi Shai Shacknai Memorial Prize in 2006, and the Dutch Josephine Nefkens Prize for Cancer Research and the German Meyenburg Cancer Research Award in 2008. He obtained an ERC Advanced Investigator grant in 2008. He is Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur since 2005.

George Q. Daley, MD, PhD

George Q. Daley, M.D., Ph.D. is the Samuel E. Lux IV Chair in Hematology and the Director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children's Hospital Boston. He is also Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a member of the Executive Committee of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and past-President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Dr. Daley received his bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Harvard University (1982), a Ph.D. in biology from MIT (1989), and the M.D. summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School (1991). He served as Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and is currently a staff physician in Hematology/Oncology at the Children's Hospital, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

John E. Dick, PhD

Dr. John Dick is currently Senior Scientist and Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology at the Research Institutes of the Toronto General and Princess Margaret Hospitals and the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Director of the Program in Cancer Stem Cells at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.

His research has focused on understanding normal and leukemic human stem cells. His work has been recognized by several major national and international prizes including: the Robert Nobel Prize (2000) and the 60th Jubilee Award (with JE Till and EA McCulloch) from the National Cancer Institute of Canada, the Boerhaave Medal from Leiden University (2002), the Dameshek (2005) and Thomas (2009) Prizes from the American Society of Hematology, and the Clowes Award (2008) from the American Association for Cancer Research.

Judith E. Kimble, PhD

Dr. Judith Kimble is a Vilas Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received her B.A. at the University of California-Berkeley, her Ph. D. from the University of Colorado-Boulder and did her postdoctoral training at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

She joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983, and has been there since. Kimble is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She has served as President of the Genetics Society of America as well as President of the Society of Developmental Biology. Her research focuses on the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans for analysis of stem cell controls. In 1981, she identified the first stem cell niche, and over the next decade showed that this niche uses Notch signaling to control stem cells. More recently, she delineated a network of intrinsic regulators that act downstream of Notch signaling to control the decision between self-renewal and the first steps towards differentiation. Kimble has also contributed to understanding how the Wnt pathway controls asymmetric cell divisions.

Olle Lindvall, MD, PhD

Olle Lindvall, MD, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Neurology and Chairman of the Division of Neurology at the University Hospital, Lund, Sweden. Dr. Lindvall is, since 2004, member of the Board of the ISSCR, and since 2005, member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for SCIENCE and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

He was co-chair of the ISCCR Task Force on the Clinical Translation of Stem Cells 2007-2008. According to PubMed, Lindvall has 295 published scientific articles since 1972. In 2008, Lindvall was elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Since 1983, Dr. Lindvall has headed the clinical neurotransplantation program at the University of Lund. This program has pioneered cell replacement strategies and been the first to show proof-of-principle, i.e., that transplanted neurons can survive, grow, restore transmitter release, become functionally integrated, and give rise to clinically measurable improvements in the diseased human brain. Current research interests in Lindvall’s laboratory are the development of stem cell-based approaches for cell replacement in Parkinson's disease and stroke.

Melissa H. Little, PhD

Professor Little is a Principal Research Fellow and leads the Renal Development and Disease Laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Australia. She was also a Founding Scientist and Director of Nephrogenix Pty Ltd and held the position of Chief Scientific Officer at the Australian Stem Cell Centre from 2007-8.

Her research focuses on the molecular genetics of kidney development and the causes of renal disease, with the aim of developing stem cell technology for use in kidney regeneration. Throughout her career, Professor Little’s achievements have been recognised by awards such as the GlaxoSmithKline Award for Research Excellence (2005), the Australian Academy of Sciences Gottschalk Medal in Medical Sciences (2004), and a prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship, which recognises her contribution to both the commercial and academic sectors. Complementing her research and commercial endeavours, Professor Little has been strongly involved in the development of medical research in Australia through her contribution to the Health and Medical Research Strategic Review and in the development of National Research Priorities for Australia.

Hiromitsu Nakauchi, MD, PhD

Hiromitsu Nakauchi, MD, PhD is a Professor and a Director of Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo. He has been a president of the Japanese Society for Regenerative Medicine since 2007.

Deepak Srivastava, MD

Deepak Srivastava, M.D., is the Director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Wilma and Adeline Pirag Distinguished Professor in Pediatric Developmental Cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

He also oversees the Gladstone Stem Cell Program and is an Attending Physician in pediatric cardiology at UCSF. Dr. Srivastava received his undergraduate degree from Rice University, followed by medical training at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, residency training in the Department of Pediatrics at UCSF, and a fellowship in pediatric cardiology at the Children’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center as a Pediatric Scientist Development Program fellow before joining the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Center in Dallas in 1996, where he remained until 2005. Dr. Srivastava’s research interests include understanding the genetic causes of heart disease and using knowledge of cardiac developmental pathways to devise novel therapeutics for human cardiac disorders. Specifically, his laboratory discovered the genetic basis for cardiac septal defects and cardiac valve defects, revealed complex signaling, transcriptional and translational networks that regulate progenitor cells to adopt a cardiac cell fate and subsequently fashion a functioning heart, and was the first to demonstrate the critical role of microRNAs in cardiovascular biology embryonic stem cell fate decisions.

Ann Tsukamoto, PhD

Ann Tsukamoto, Ph.D. has held various positions at StemCells, Inc., since joining the company in 1997. In September 2008, she was appointed Executive Vice President for Research & Development with responsibility for the company’s scientific and clinical development programs.

She received her Ph.D. (1985) in Microbiology & Immunology at University of California, Los Angeles and her postdoctoral work with Dr. Harold Varmus at the University of California, San Francisco, where she worked on the wnt-1 gene, a key player in the stem cell self-renewal pathway. Dr. Tsukamoto has been working in the stem cell field for the past 20 years. While at SyStemix, Inc. (1989 - 1997), the first stem cell company, she co-discovered the human hematopoietic stem cell and played a leading role in the launch of the clinical research program for this cell. Dr. Tsukamoto is an inventor on seven issued U.S. Patents of which six are related to the human hematopoietic stem cell. Under her direction at StemCells Inc., the scientific team has discovered the human central nervous system stem cell and candidate stem cells for the liver and pancreas. The human neural stem cell, HuCNS-SC®, has now been approved for two human clinical trials in rare, fatal genetics diseases; the lysosomal storage disease, neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis and the myelination disease, Pelizaeus-Merzbacher.

Leonard I. Zon, MD

Dr. Leonard I. Zon is the Grousbeck Professor of Pediatric Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Director of the Stem Cell Program, Children’s Hospital Boston. He received a B.S. degree in chemistry and natural sciences from Muhlenberg College and an M.D. degree from Jefferson Medical College.

He subsequently did an internal medicine residency at New England Deaconess Hospital and a fellowship in medical oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His postdoctoral research was in the laboratory of Stuart Orkin. Dr. Leonard Zon is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in the fields of stem cell biology and cancer genetics. He is founder and former president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research and chair of the Executive Committee of the newly formed Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). He recently completed a term as President of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. In 2005, Dr. Zon was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. In 2008, Dr. Zon was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Dr. Zon's laboratory uses the zebrafish as a model system for understanding vertebrate blood development. Zebrafish blood formation is similar to that of humans, and several mutants have disorders resembling human disease. It is possible to evaluate in the zebrafish genetic pathways important for vertebrate hematopoiesis. Dr. Zon also uses the zebrafish to study cancer.

Irving L. Weissman, MD - Ex Officio

Irving L. Weissman, MD, is the Director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Director of the Stanford Cancer Center and Director of the Stanford Ludwig Center for Stem Cell Research. Dr. Weissman is the current ISSCR President.

2010 Program Committee

ISSCR 8th Annual Meeting