Speakers & Topics

Plenary I: Presidential Symposium
Sponsored by: Fate Therapeutics

• Ernest McCulloch Lecture:  Fiona Watt, King's College London, UK
• Steven Finkbeiner, Gladstone Institutes, USA
• Eric Olson, University of Texas Southwestern, USA
• Aviv Regev, Broad Institute, USA

Plenary II: Machine Learning and Computational Approaches

• Trey Ideker, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, USA
• Ajamete Kaykas, insitro, USA
• Hiroaki Kitano, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
• Emma Lundberg, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Plenary III: Embryogenesis and Development

• Benoit Bruneau, Gladstone Institutes, USA
• Elaine Fuchs, HHMI, Rockefeller University, USA
• Ken Zaret, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, USA
• Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, University of Cambridge, UK

Plenary IV: Stem Cells and Aging

• Margaret Goodell, Baylor College of Medicine, USA
  
• Guanghui Liu, Institute of Biophysics, CAS, China
• Emi Nishimura, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan
• Beth Stevens, Boston Children's Hospital, USA

Plenary V: Dissecting Organogenesis

• Miki Ebisuya, EMBL Barcelona, Spain
• Madeline Lancaster, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK
• Henrik Semb, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Plenary VI: Reprogramming and Regeneration

• Anne McLaren Lecture: Alta Charo, University of Wisconsin USA
• Botond Roska, Friedrich Miescher Institute, Switzerland
• Li Qian, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
• Shinya Yamanaka, Center for iPS Cell Research & Application, Japan

Plenary VII: Clinical Innovation and Gene Editing
Sponsored by BlueRock Therapeutics

• John McNeish Lecture: Brian Wainger, Harvard University, USA
• Katherine High, Spark Therapeutics, USA
• Michel Sadelain, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, USA
• Keynote Address: Sekar Kathiresan, Verve Therapeutics, USA

Four core themes will be carried throughout the concurrent and poster sessions.

• Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration: exploring tissue stem cells in development, maintenance, and regeneration, stem cell-niche interactions, and stem cells in cancer
  
• Cellular Identity: understanding the basis of cell state and type, epigenetic and genetic regulation, and the mechanisms of reprogramming
• Modeling Development and Disease: examining advances using stem cells in vivo and in vitro to model development and disease with applications for drug discovery and therapeutics
• Clinical Applications: highlighting the cellular therapy and tissue engineering research that is moving toward the clinic
  

During 20 concurrent sessions, each theme will be explored in different cell and tissue contexts:

• Cardiac and Muscle
• Early Embryo and Pluripotency
• Endodermal, Epithelial and Mesenchymal
• Hematopoietic and Endothelial
• Neural

Concurrent Sessions and Invited Speakers

Cellular Identity: Cardiac and Muscle

• Helen Blau, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA
• Richard Harvey, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Australia

Cellular Identity: Early Development and Pluripotency

• Joanna Wysocka, Stanford University, USA
• Richard Young, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, USA

Cellular Identity: Hematopoietic and Endothelial Cells

• Shangqin Guo, Yale University, USA
• Shahin Rafii, Cornell Medical College, USA

Cellular Identity: Neural

• Magdalena Goetz, Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, Germany
• Justin Ichida, University of Southern California, USA

Clinical Applications: Cardiac and Muscle

• Milica Radisic, University of Toronto, Canada

Clinical Applications: Early Development and Pluripotency-- Interspecies chimeras for stem cell research

• Josephine Johnston, Hastings Center, USA
• Martin Pera, The Jackson Labs, USA
• Jun Wu, UT Southwestern Medical Center, USA

Clinical Applications: Hematopoietic and Endothelial Cells

• Alessandro Aiuti, San Raffaele Hospital, Italy
• Judith Shizuru, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA

Clinical Applications: Neural

• Megan Munsie, University of Melbourne, Australia
• Malin Parmar, Lund University, Sweden

Clinical Applications: Pancreas

• Hongkui Deng, Peking University, China
• Mark Zimmerman, ViaCyte, USA

Modeling Development and Disease: Cardiac and Muscle

• Tim Hoey, Tenaya Therapeutics, USA
• Stephanie Protze, McEwen Stem Cell Institute, University Health Network, Canada

Modeling Development and Disease: Gene Editing in Early Embryo and Pluripotent Stem Cells

• Kathy Niakan, The Francis Crick Institute, UK
• Giuseppe Testa, University of Milan, Italy

Modeling Development and Disease: Hematopoietic and Endothelial Cells

• Sten Eirik Jacobsen, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
• Steven McCarroll, Harvard Medical School and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, USA

Modeling Development and Disease: Neural

• Haruhisa Inoue, CiRA, Kyoto University, Japan
• Li-Huei Tsai, Massachusetts Institute for Technology, USA

Modeling Development and Disease: Organoids of Endodermal Lineage

• Lijian Hui, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, China
• Hans Snoeck, Columbia University Medical Center, USA

Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration: Cancer and Stem Cells

• Robert Blelloch, University of California, San Francisco, USA
• Carla Kim, Boston Children's Hospital, USA

Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration: Cardiac and Muscle

• Masaki Ieda, University of Tsukuba, Japan
• Kristy Red-Horse, Stanford University, USA

Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration: Early Development and Pluripotency

• Janet Rossant, Hospital for Sick Children, Canada
  
• Fuchou Tang, Peking University, China

Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration: Epithelial Stem Cells

• Danielle Devenport, Princeton University, USA
• Eugenia Piddini, University of Bristol, UK

Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration- Hematopoietic and Endothelial Cells

• Matthew Porteus, Stanford Medical School, USA
• Claudia Waskow, Leibniz Institute on Aging- FLI, Germany

Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration: Neural

• Thomas Reh, University of Washington, USA
• Alejandro Schinder, Leloir Institute, Argentina