Cast your ballot for the 2021 ISSCR Board of Directors
Voting is open 1 February through 5 March, 2021.
The ISSCR invites all full and trainee members to help shape the future of your society by voting in the 2021 ISSCR Board of Directors election. Eligible members will receive an email with instructions. Make sure to join now or renew your membership for 2021 to participate. For more information, contact Lynnea Brand at lbrand@isscr.org.
The ISSCR Board of Directors consists of 21 members, and includes the president, president elect, vice president, past president, clerk and treasurer. Nominations for the Board of Directors were made by ISSCR members in September 2020. Candidates have been slated by the Nominating Committee with an emphasis on scientific authority and to maintain the overall international diversity of the board.
Voting is open 1 February, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. CST through 5 March, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. CST.
Current full and trainee members are invited to vote for:
- Vice President
- Clerk
- Three new members of the ISSCR Board of Directors
- Re-appointment of four Board members
New officers and directors will begin their terms following the ISSCR 2021 Annual Meeting, 21–26 June.
1. Candidates for Vice President

Amander Clark, PhD
Amander Clark, PhD
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 Biology at the University of Melbourne and her PhD in Developmental Biology also at the University of Melbourne. Her postdoctoral work was performed at Baylor College of Medicine and UCSF. 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, Dr. Clark has received a number of awards including, a Young Investigator Award from the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a Research and Career Development award from STOP Cancer, a Research Award from the Concern Foundation and a Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
Dr. Clark has served in numerous leadership roles in the scientific community including the ISSCR Executive Committee (2018-2021), Chair of the ISSCR Strategic Oversight Committee (2018-2021), Chair of the ISSCR Program Committee (2020-), Co-Chair of the ISSCR Next Generation Retreat (2019-) and a member of the Task Force Committee to update the ISSCR Guidelines. She also serves on numerous Boards including the Oregon National Primate Research Center (2016-), Monash Biomedical Research Institute (2018), the Institute for Biogenesis Research, University of Hawai’i at Manoa (2019-) and the Tepper Foundation (2019-)

Chuck Murry, MD, PhD
Chuck Murry, MD, PhD
In my vision, the ISSCR will catalyze the emergence of regenerative medicine by bringing basic scientists, physicians, engineers, and regulatory officials together with capital and technology from the private sector. We should foster discovery at key knowledge gaps, including immunology, cell manufacturing, and genome integrity. And we can develop that most valuable of resources: human talent. I see a time when results of major clinical trials are announced routinely at our meetings. It’s time to move regenerative medicine from promise to practice, and the ISSCR should lead the way.
A native of Bismarck, North Dakota, Murry completed his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the University of North Dakota, followed by MD-PhD training at Duke University. His PhD thesis included the discovery of ischemic preconditioning, a stress response that provides the most powerful protection against cell death identified to date. He did residency training in Pathology at the University of Washington, followed by a clinical fellowship in cardiovascular pathology and a research fellowship in vascular biology. He joined the UW faculty in 1996, reached full professor in 2004, and was a founder of UW’s Center for Cardiovascular Biology in 2005 and its Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine in 2008.
The Murry laboratory pioneered the use of human pluripotent stem cells for heart regeneration and was the first to form human myocardium in experimental animals using stem cell transplantation. They showed that this new myocardium becomes vascularized, survives long term, beats in synchrony with the heart, and restores function in small animals and non-human primates. This work led to his being a scientific founder of Sana Biotechnology, through which he plans to conduct clinical trials of heart regeneration.
Murry received a Burroughs-Wellcome Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences in 1996 and a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering in 2000. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Physicians, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the Washington State Academy of Sciences. He also is an award-winning teacher at the UW. Murry has served as a Councilor for the International Society for Heart Research (chairing the Stem Cell and Gene Therapy Interest Group), and the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology (chairing the Program Committee). He has served on multiple editorial boards, review boards for NIH and private foundations, scientific advisory boards, and organizing committees for international meetings. In 2018 Murry worked with the Washington State Legislature to pass a consumer protection bill against predatory stem cell clinics.
Within the ISSCR, Murry served on the 2016 Task Force to revise the Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation. He led a strategic planning workshop for the ISSCR in 2018. He represented the Society in lobbying the US Congress on human fetal tissue research in 2019, and he is currently a member of the Board of Directors and serves on the Clinical Translation Committee. He would be honored to continue this line of service to the ISSCR as Vice President.
2. Candidates for Clerk

Fiona Doetsch, PhD
Fiona Doetsch, PhD
Research in the Doetsch laboratory focuses on the intrinsic and extrinsic regulation of stem cells in the adult mammalian brain. Her work identified the cell types and stem cells in the adult ventricular-subventricular zone neural stem cell niche, unexpectedly revealing that stem cells in the mammalian nervous system have hallmark features of glial cells. She and her group have developed several widely used assays, including a regeneration assay and purification strategies to prospectively isolate quiescent and activated adult neural stem cells and their progeny, as well as niche cells. Current research is focused on the in-vivo heterogeneity of adult neural stem cells, and has uncovered physiological states and long-range signals, including signals from the cerebrospinal fluid, the vasculature and neural circuits, as key regulators of spatially and functionally distinct pools of adult neural stem cells for the generation of specific subtypes of neurons and glia.
Dr. Doetsch has received multiple awards including the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, the Irma T. Hirschl Scholar Award and the Harold and Golden Lamport Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research. In 2020, she was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She has served on many advisory boards, review panels, selection committees and meeting program committees, including the editorial boards of Cell Stem Cell, Neuron, Stem Cell Reports and Science Advances. She has been actively engaged in building and fostering diverse stem cell communities that bridge basic and clinical science, as a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative, and now in Switzerland at local and national levels.
Within the ISSCR, Dr. Doetsch is a member of the ISSCR Board of Directors, and Chair of the ISSCR Publications Committee. She has also served on the Program Committees for the 2018 ISSCR Annual Meeting in Melbourne, Australia, the 2017 ISSCR Regional Meeting in Basel, Switzerland, and the Task Force on Future Annual Meetings Strategy. Having grown up in Canada, spent many years in the United States, and now living in Europe, she seeks to foster international communities and engagement. At this time of unprecedented change in the world, the ISSCR has an opportunity to play a key role in innovating new ways to bridge communities across both national and disciplinary boundaries.

Lucy O'Brien, PhD
Lucy O'Brien, PhD
Dr. O'Brien received her B.A. magna cum laude in Biochemistry from Harvard University. She obtained her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco, studying how epithelial organoids self-organize in culture. She performed postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, where she switched to stem cell-based epithelial organs in vivo. Lucy started the O’Brien Lab in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford Medical School in 2013. She was a Genentech Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation and is currently a Research Scholar of the American Cancer Society and a Stanford Gabilan Fellow. She is also on the Board of Reviewing Editors for eLife and an editor of Mechanisms of Development.
Dr. O'Brien first joined the ISSCR as a postdoc in 2010 and has been a member continuously since. She served as Co-chair of the ISSCR Junior Investigators' Committee and of the 2019 Special Task Force on Annual Meeting Programming, and she is a current member of the Editorial Board of Stem Cell Reports. At the ISSCR annual meeting, she has chaired the Tissue Homeostasis session and co-organized the Diversity and Inclusion Meetup. In 2020, Lucy was selected as an ISSCR Next Generation Leader. Lucy is inspired by the ISSCR’s unique mission as a global organization that serves the entire span of stem cell biology, from basic research to clinic applications to ethics. In her view, this mission is a cardinal asset as the ISSCR becomes a leader promulgating diversity in stem cell research, inclusiveness in clinical investigations, and equity in patient access.
3. Candidates for the Board of Directors

Melissa Carpenter, PhD
Melissa Carpenter, PhD
Dr. Carpenter has a track record of launching programs and forming and building teams focused on early stage stem cell therapies. She lead the development of stem cell programs at CytoTherapeutics, Inc (StemCells, Inc), Geron, Corp., and Novocell, Inc (Viacyte, Inc). All three of these companies went on to successfully test their stem cell products in First-in-Human clinical trials.
In 2008, Dr. Carpenter founded Carpenter Group Consulting which works with early stage companies, academic groups and investors to translate discovery based research into stem cell therapies suitable for clinical entry. In her consulting role, she has been provided strategic, scientific, manufacturing, preclinical and regulatory guidance for the development of over 75 cell and gene therapies.
Dr. Carpenter has been named inventor on 34 issued US patents and has over 50 peer reviewed publications in the stem cell field. She received her PhD from the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology at University of California, Irvine and received her B.Sc. in Psychology from University of Oregon.
Within the ISSCR, Dr. Carpenter served on the 2020 Task Force to revise the Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation and represented the Society in lobbying the US Congress in 2019. She has also served on the Clinical Translation Committee.

Jinsong Li, PhD
Jinsong Li, PhD
Dr. Li has been a member of the ISSCR since 2013, and served on the ISSCR 2017 Annual Meeting Program Committee. He is currently a member of the ISSCR Task Force on Asian Engagement. Dr. Li has also been a member of the International Commission on Heritable Human Genome Editing.

Malin Parmar, PhD
Malin Parmar, PhD
Dr. Parmar has been awarded an ERC starting grant (2013), an ERC consolidator grant (2017), was appointed as New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator (2017) and is active in several EU consortia. Together with her team she has shown in a series of pioneering studies how human fibroblasts can be converted into neurons, how glial cells can be reprogrammed into neurons in vivo, and how functional dopamine neurons can be generated from human embryonic stem cells. Dr. Parmar’s research has a strong translational focus. She leads the European effort STEM-PD, with the ambition to bring stem cell-derived dopamine neurons to clinical trials for Parkinson’s Disease. She also collaborates within several European and International networks as well as Industry partners to develop new, cell-based therapies for brain repair.
Dr. Parmar actively participates in events organized by Science for Democracy, public events targeted for increased awareness of stem cell research and she is one of the founding members of the global initiative GForce-PD. Since 2020 she is a member of the Cell Stem Cell Advisory board. Within the ISSCR, Dr. Parmar has chaired and participated in a number of program committees, served on the Membership Committee 2013-2016, co-chaired the International Committee 2016-2019 and is currently chairing the International Committee.

Mitinori Saitou, MD, PhD
Mitinori Saitou, MD, PhD
Mitinori Saitou received his M.D. from the Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine in 1995, and received his Ph.D. in 1999 for his study of the structure and function of tight junctions under Shoichiro Tsukita in the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. He then moved to the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research Campaign Institute (present name: Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute), where he worked as a postdoctoral research associate in Azim Surani’s laboratory, focusing on the origin of the germ line in the mouse. He was appointed team leader at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in 2003. He continued to work on the origin, properties and regulation of the germ line in the mouse. He was appointed professor at the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine in 2009. He was appointed director of the JST ERATO program in 2011. He was appointed professor at the Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study (KUIAS) and director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (ASHBi) in 2018. His work focuses on the mechanism and in vitro reconstitution of germ cell development in mice, non-human primates, and humans.
Mitinori Saitou has received several awards such as the Takeda Prize for Medicine, the Academic Award of the Mochida Memorial Foundation, the Asahi Prize, the Uehara Prize, the Imperial Prize and Japan Academy Prize, and the ISSCR Momentum Award. He is an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) and has acted/acts on the editorial boards of Developmental Cell, Development, Science, and Cell Stem Cell.
Dr. Saitou has served on the ISSCR Annual Meeting Program Committee and the ISSCR Award Selection Committees (the Achievement Award, the Momentum Award, and the Susan Lim Award for Outstanding Young Investigator). He is currently a member of the ISSCR Guidelines Working Group.

Wei Xie, PhD
Wei Xie, PhD
Using interdisciplinary approaches, Dr. Xie is dedicated to understanding how the epigenome is inherited, reprogrammed, and established in early mammalian development when life just begins. His group established a series of ultra-sensitive technologies to analyze chromatin dynamics using only several hundred cells or fewer. By doing so, his team revealed how histone modifications, chromatin accessibility, and 3D chromatin architecture are re-configured during early mammalian development at the DNA levels. His work demonstrated that chromatin of mammalian gametes and early embryos is subjected to unique regulatory mechanisms that are distinct from those in somatic cells and, in some cases, embryonic stem cells. Such epigenetic reprogramming is essential for the successful parental-to-zygotic transition and the ultimate generation of a totipotent embryo.
Dr. Xie has won numerous awards including HHMI International Research Scholar, Qiushi Excellent Young Scholar Award, Outstanding Young Scholar Award from National Science Foundation of China, C. C. Tan Life Science Innovation Award, China Science and Technology Young Scholar Award, and the 1st Xplorer Prize Award. He is acting on the advisory editorial board of Development.
Dr. Xie is currently serving on the editorial board of Stem Cell Reports. In 2020, he was selected as an ISSCR Next Generation Leader.
3. Re-appointment of Board Members

Fiona Doetsch, PhD
Fiona Doetsch, PhD
Research in the Doetsch laboratory focuses on the intrinsic and extrinsic regulation of stem cells in the adult mammalian brain. Her work identified the cell types and stem cells in the adult ventricular-subventricular zone neural stem cell niche, unexpectedly revealing that stem cells in the mammalian nervous system have hallmark features of glial cells. She and her group have developed several widely used assays, including a regeneration assay and purification strategies to prospectively isolate quiescent and activated adult neural stem cells and their progeny, as well as niche cells. Current research is focused on the in-vivo heterogeneity of adult neural stem cells, and has uncovered physiological states and long-range signals, including signals from the cerebrospinal fluid, the vasculature and neural circuits, as key regulators of spatially and functionally distinct pools of adult neural stem cells for the generation of specific subtypes of neurons and glia.
Dr. Doetsch has received multiple awards including the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, the Irma T. Hirschl Scholar Award and the Harold and Golden Lamport Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research. In 2020, she was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She has served on many advisory boards, review panels, selection committees and meeting program committees, including the editorial boards of Cell Stem Cell, Neuron, Stem Cell Reports and Science Advances. She has been actively engaged in building and fostering diverse stem cell communities that bridge basic and clinical science, as a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative, and now in Switzerland at local and national levels.
Within the ISSCR, Dr. Doetsch is a member of the ISSCR Board of Directors, and Chair of the ISSCR Publications Committee. She has also served on the Program Committees for the 2018 ISSCR Annual Meeting in Melbourne, Australia, the 2017 ISSCR Regional Meeting in Basel, Switzerland, and the Task Force on Future Annual Meetings Strategy. Having grown up in Canada, spent many years in the United States, and now living in Europe, she seeks to foster international communities and engagement. At this time of unprecedented change in the world, the ISSCR has an opportunity to play a key role in innovating new ways to bridge communities across both national and disciplinary boundaries.

Jane Lebkowski, PhD
Jane Lebkowski, PhD
From 2013-2017, Jane Lebkowski also served as Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D at Asterias Biotherapeutics Inc, where she headed all preclinical, product, regulatory, and clinical development of Asterias’ regenerative medicine and dendritic cell based-cancer immunotherapy products. Prior to joining Asterias, Dr. Lebkowski was Senior Vice President of Regenerative Medicine and Chief Scientific Officer at Geron Corporation. Dr. Lebkowski led Geron’s human embryonic stem cell program from 1998-2012 and was responsible for all research, preclinical development, product development, manufacturing, and clinical development activities supporting cell-based therapies for several regenerative medicine indications including spinal cord injury and cardiovascular disease. From 1986-1998, Dr. Lebkowski was Vice President of Research and Development at Applied Immune Sciences where she directed activities to develop T cell-based cancer immunotherapies for solid tumors, hematologic malignancies and AIDs. Following the acquisition of Applied Immune Sciences by Rhone Poulenc Rorer (RPR, currently Sanofi), Dr. Lebkowski remained at RPR as Vice President of Discovery Research. During Dr. Lebkowski’s tenure at RPR, she coordinated preclinical investigations of gene therapy approaches for treatment of cancer, cardiovascular disease and nervous system disorders, and directed vector formulations and delivery development. Dr. Lebkowski received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Princeton University in 1982, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Genetics, Stanford University in 1986.
Dr. Lebkowski has published over 80 peer reviewed publications and has 19 issued U.S. patents. Dr. Lebkowski has served on the board of Directors of the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy and the International Society for Stem Cell Research along with numerous scientific advisory boards and professional committees.

Martin Pera, PhD
Martin Pera, PhD
Pera’s research focus is the cell biology of human pluripotent stem cells. He was one of a small group of investigators who pioneered the isolation and characterization of pluripotent stem cells from human germ cell tumors, studies that provided critical background for the isolation of pluripotent stem cells from embryos. His laboratory at Monash University was the second in the world to isolate embryonic stem cells from the human blastocyst, and the first to describe their differentiation into somatic cells in vitro. Currently his lab studies the regulation of self-renewal and pluripotency and neural specification of pluripotent stem cells. Pera was amongst the first to analyse heterogeneity in human pluripotent stem cell cultures, work that is now clarifying the embryological coordinates of these cells, and is critical to their use as models for human development. His early work on neural differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells helped lead to the development of a new treatment for macular degeneration, a common form of blindness, which is now in clinical trial in Israel and California. At the Jackson Laboratory, he is using human stem cells and mouse models to study the genetic basis of individual differences in the response of the central nervous system to injury and the genetics of age-related macular degeneration.

Takanori Takebe, MD, PhD
Takanori Takebe, MD, PhD
The Takebe Lab proposes “organoid-by-design” approach by translating knowledge of organogenesis into in vitro engineering-based narrative design to advance organoid technology for future biomedical applications. Towards this aim, Takebe Lab pioneered cellular complexity engineering into organoids in a controlled manner that results in organized assembly and acquisition of tissue function: e.g. integration of organ specialized endothelium, mesenchyme and immunity components into human liver organoids. More recently, his lab shows the first multi-organ (human hepato-biliary-pancreatic) system by recapitulating the developmental foregut-midgut boundary interaction modelled in vitro from human pluripotent stem cells. Coupled with emerging genetics, imaging and transcriptomics toolbox, he extends the potential of human organoids for understanding the human variations of the common disorders by linking phenotype and genotype. Thus, his work has provided unprecedented translational opportunities for prevention, diagnostics, and therapeutics development, leading up to multiple start-up and industry collaborations. His unique approach of organoid transplantation should extend stem cell based therapy to the end stage of organ failure, for which there is currently no treatment available besides organ transplant.
Being a board member of the ISSCR with numerous committee commitments including Next Generation of Leaders, 2019 Program Committee, International Committee, Strategic Oversight Committee, Nominating Committee, Dr. Takebe is passionate to promote stem cell research, eager to learn emerging science and technology, and enjoys community building by pushing the boundaries: senior/junior, majority/minority, domestic/international and industry/academia. He is also on the boards of Stem Cell Reports, Cell Reports Medicine, Cell Stem Cell and Hepatology. His major awards include the 2015 Baelz Prize of the Boehringer Ingelheim, the 2016 Robertson Investigator Award from the New-York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), the 2017 Presidential Award of Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development and the 2020 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award from NIH-NIDDK.