Amander T. Clark Takes on New Role as President of the ISSCR

Skokie, IL – The ISSCR is pleased to announce Amander T. Clark, PhD, Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA, as its President. Dr. Clark’s one-year term of office leading the global society begins 1 July 2023.

“I will work to ensure that the society continues to defend stem cell science and the researchers working to transform lives,” Dr. Clark said at the ISSCR 2023 Annual Meeting in Boston this month. “We will expand our engagement with the public in order to demystify how science becomes medicine and commit to improving equity, global access, and affordability of proven stem cell treatments.”

Amander T. Clark is an Australian born American stem cell biologist specializing in pluripotency and germline cell differentiation with the primary goal of understanding and treating human infertility. In her laboratory at UCLA, Dr. Clark’s work is focused on the use of pluripotent stem cells to understand the cell and molecular basis of human reproduction and embryo development with an emphasis on mechanisms involved in epigenetic reprogramming. For this work she has received a number of awards.

Dr. Clark was born in a small sheep farming community in the Western District of Victoria, Australia. The first in her family to attend university, she received her Bachelor of Science degree in Cell and Developmental Biology and a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her postdoctoral work was performed at Baylor College of Medicine, and UCSF, both in the USA. She joined the faculty at UCLA in 2006, was awarded Associate Professor with tenure in 2012 and rose to the rank of Full Professor in 2015. In 2017, Dr. Clark became Professor and Chair of the Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology Department at UCLA where she is also a key member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research.

Dr. Clark has served in numerous leadership roles in the scientific community including the ISSCR Executive Committee (2018-2021), ISSCR Clerk and Chair of the ISSCR Strategic Oversight Committee (2018-2021), Chair of the ISSCR Program Committee (2021-22), Co-Chair of the ISSCR Next Generation of Leaders Retreat (2022) and a member of the Task Force Committee to update the ISSCR Guidelines.

The ISSCR is equally pleased to announce Valentina Greco, PhD, Yale Stem Cell Center, USA is President-elect and will serve as president officially starting 1 July 2024. Hideyuki Okano, MD, PhD, Keio University, Japan is the new Vice President.

Shuibing Chen, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine, USA, Michele De Luca, MD, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, and Megan Munsie, PhD, University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Australia were elected to the ISSCR Board of Directors for a three-year term also beginning 1 July 2023.

Jürgen Knoblich, PhD, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Austria and Lygia da Veiga Pereira, PhD, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil were re-appointed to another term.

Learn more about the ISSCR Board of Directors.

About the International Society for Stem Cell Research (www.isscr.org
With more than 4,600 members from 80 countries worldwide, the International Society for Stem Cell Research is the preeminent global, cross-disciplinary, science-based organization dedicated to stem cell research and its translation to the clinic. The ISSCR mission is to promote excellence in stem cell science and applications to human health. Additional information about stem cell science is available at A Closer Look at Stem Cells, an initiative of the society to inform the public about stem cell research and its potential to improve human health.

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