Amander Clark is Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, UCLA.

Over the last two decades ISSCR members have established the society as a global organization, home to a diverse membership with the common objective; to be the leading authority on issues related to stem cell research and translation.  As we move forward, it is essential that the ISSCR continues to develop and support polices and research guidance that are rooted in ethically sound science and to nurture our trainees and investigators to ensure everyone’s voices are heard. To build on the foundation that has been set, the society must continue to uphold the ethical conduct of stem cell research and push the translation of stem cell discoveries to the clinic; leaning-in to our bioethicists, industry partners and clinical colleagues and speaking to truth when stem cell science is misconstrued or misused for political or economic gain. Finally, we also have a responsibility to each other; to be inclusive of scientific ideas and nurture the international vibrancy and diversity of our membership. Together, I believe we are on the verge of achieving our grand vision where basic and translational research in stem cell science and regenerative medicine will advance human health and well-being.

Amander 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. She joined the faculty at University of California, Los Angeles (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 the University of California Los Angeles, where she is also a key member of the UCLA Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. 

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 is the Conner Chair in Pathology, Bioengineering and Cardiology, and the Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He also is a Senior Vice President at Sana Biotechnology where he heads the Cardiometabolic Cell Therapy program. His research focuses on heart regeneration using stem cells.

To quote Bob Dylan, the times they are a-changin’, and after decades of breathtaking basic research, stem cell science is maturing. Lessons from stem cell differentiation, cellular reprogramming, and genome editing give us the tools to rebuild tissues. We now can responsibly attempt regenerative medicine in humans. The ISSCR needs to embrace and lead this change. 

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.

Chuck Murry is a pathologist and stem cell biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he uses stem cell systems to study heart regeneration, cardiovascular development, and genetic diseases. Since 2019, Murry has spent 4 days/week serving as Senior Vice President at Sana Biotechnology. He is delighted to be running for Vice President of the ISSCR!

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.

Dr. Doetsch is Professor of Molecular Stem Cell Biology at the Biozentrum at the University of Basel in Switzerland. 

Fiona Doetsch obtained her B.Sc. at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and her PhD at Rockefeller University in New York City, USA. She then became a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, joined Columbia University as Assistant Professor in 2003, and obtained tenure in 2011. In 2014, she moved to the Biozentrum, University of Basel in Switzerland where she is Full Professor.  

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. 

Dr. O'Brien is Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and an Associate Member of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Lucy O'Brien asks fundamental questions about how stem cells work in mature organs by leveraging the genetic tractability and relative simplicity of an invertebrate model, the adult Drosophila intestine. By deciphering the basic biology of stem cells in vivo, her research helps uncover new possibilities for regenerative medicine. Lucy’s lab has pioneered imaging methodologies to watch single cells and whole organs inside live animals over multiple days and developed new genetic approaches and analytical platforms to track and analyze stem cell lineages in space and time. By deploying these tools on two complementary fronts—organs-to-cells and cells-to-organs—she is building a conceptual understanding of how stem cells and their resident tissues communicate. 

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.

Dr. Carpenter is the Chief Scientific Officer of Regenerative Medicine at ElevateBio and the founder of Carpenter Group Consulting.

Dr. Carpenter is the Chief Scientific Officer of Regenerative Medicine at ElevateBio. For over 25 years, she has worked on the development of cell therapies using human adult and pluripotent stem cells, in academia and industry. She has been involved with human pluripotent stem cell research since the field was first established. Dr. Carpenter’s work involves discovery research and the translation of this research into therapeutic products, including developing strategies for cell manufacturing, preclinical development and navigating regulatory issues surrounding stem cell therapies. 

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.

Dr. Jinsong Li is a Professor of Stem Cell and Development and the Director of State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology at Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Li received his PhD from the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and postdoctoral training at The Rockefeller University. Dr. Li’s lab focuses on stem cells and embryonic development, and he has made fundamental contributions through his work in mice to the establishment of androgenetic haploid embryonic stem cells that can be used as sperm replacement to efficiently support full-term embryonic development upon injection into MII oocytes (so-called artificial spermatids), leading to the generation of semi-cloned (SC) mice. Dr. Li has shown that this technology can be used as a unique tool for genetic analyses in mice, including medium-scale targeted screening of crucial genes or essential nucleotides of a specific gene involved in a developmental process; efficient generation of mouse models carrying defined point mutations related to human developmental defects; and one-step generation of mouse models that mimic multiple genetic defects in human diseases. Recently, Dr. Li initiated a major genome tagging project (GTP) to tag every protein in mice based on artificial spermatid–mediated SC technology, which may enable the precise description of protein expression and localization patterns, and protein-protein, protein-DNA, and protein–RNA interactions at organismal level. 

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 is currently a full Professor in cellular neuroscience at the medical faculty, Lund University and a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator. She currently chairs the International Committee for ISSCR.

Dr. Parmar graduated from Simon Fraser University in Canada with a BSc. in chemistry. She was awarded a PhD in Developmental Biology from Lund University in Sweden in 2003 and subsequently performed her postdoctoral training at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2008 she was awarded start-up funding from the Swedish Research Council to establish her own research team at the at the Department of Experimental Medical Science at Lund University, Sweden where she now heads the group Developmental and Regenerative Neurobiology. 

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.

Dr. Saitou is Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (ASHBi), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.

Dr. Saitou’s laboratory is interested in the mechanism and in vitro reconstitution of mammalian germ cell development. They have clarified the mechanism of germ cell specification in mice and shown that mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs)/induced pluripotent stem cells (miPSCs) are induced into primordial germ cell-like cells (mPGCLCs) with a robust capacity both for spermatogenesis and oogenesis and for contributing to offspring. Based on this system, they have revealed the mechanism of key events during germ-cell development such as epigenetic reprogramming, sex determination, and meiotic entry. By investigating the development of cynomolgus monkeys, they have defined a developmental coordinate of the spectrum of pluripotency among mice, monkeys, and humans, and have identified the origin of the germ-cell lineage in cynomolgus monkeys in the amnion. Accordingly, they have succeeded in inducing human iPSCs (hiPSCs) with a primed pluripotency into human PGCLCs (hPGCLCs) and then into oogonia and early oocytes with appropriate epigenetic reprogramming. They have also shown that hPGCLCs can be propagated to ~10⁶-fold over a period of 4 months under a defined condition. Thus, their work has established the foundation for mammalian in vitro gametogenesis.

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.

Dr. Wei Xie is a Professor at School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, and a member of the Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences. He is also an HHMI International Research Scholar.

Dr. Wei Xie received his B.S. degree in Molecular Biology at Peking University in China in 2003. He pursued his PhD study at UCLA, where he joined the laboratory of Michael Grunstein to study the function of histones and histone modifications. He also obtained a M.S. double degree in statistics at UCLA with Ker-Chau Li. After completing his graduate studies in 2008, he continued research in epigenetics and transcription regulation as a postdoctoral fellow in Bing Ren’s lab at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, UCSD in 2009. After his postdoc training, he joined Tsinghua University, School of Life Sciences, in Beijing as a Principal Investigator in 2013. He is also a member of the Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences. 

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.

Dr. Doetsch is Professor of Molecular Stem Cell Biology at the Biozentrum at the University of Basel in Switzerland. 

Fiona Doetsch obtained her B.Sc. at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and her PhD at Rockefeller University in New York City, USA. She then became a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, joined Columbia University as Assistant Professor in 2003, and obtained tenure in 2011. In 2014, she moved to the Biozentrum, University of Basel in Switzerland where she is Full Professor.  

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 has been actively involved in the development of cell and gene therapies since 1986 and is President of Regenerative Patch Technologies (RPT), a biotechnology firm developing composite stem cell-based implants targeting restoration of retinal architecture and function in patients with macular degeneration. 

Jane Lebkowski has been actively involved in the development of cell and gene therapies since 1986 and is President of Regenerative Patch Technologies (RPT), a biotechnology firm developing composite stem cell-based implants targeting restoration of retinal architecture and function in patients with macular degeneration. In this role, Dr Lebkowski oversees all of RPT’s operations. 

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 is a Professor at the Jackson Laboratory. He is the Chair of the Steering Group of the International Stem Cell Initiative Genetics and Epigenetics Study Group, a current member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, and Editor-in-Chief of Stem Cell Reports. He has been a member of the ISSCR since its inception, and has served on and chaired a number of committees of the Society.

Martin Pera received his BA from the College of William and Mary, and his PhD from George Washington University, and undertook postdoctoral training in the UK at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He held independent research positions at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Department of Zoology at Oxford University before joining Monash University in 1996. In 2006 he moved to Los Angeles as the Founding Director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of Southern California.  He returned to Melbourne in 2011 to become Professor of Stem Cell Sciences at the University of Melbourne and Program Leader for Stem Cells Australia, the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative in Stem Cell Sciences. He joined the Jackson Laboratory in 2017. Pera is the Chair of the Steering Group of the International Stem Cell Initiative Genetics and Epigenetics Study Group, a current member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, and Editor-in-Chief of Stem Cell Reports. He serves on the editorial boards of Cell Stem Cell and Stem Cells and is a Reviewing Editor for eLife.

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 is a Director of Commercial Innovation in Center for Stem Cell & Organoid Medicine (CuSTOM) (2017-), and Assistant Professor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (2015-). He is also Professor at the Institute of Research at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) (2018-), and the founding director, Communication Design Center, Yokohama City University (2018-), and Principal Investigator at the Takeda-CiRA joint program (2016-). He is scientific founder of The Liver Company (TLC), Organoid Neogenesis Laboratory,EggStellar Inc. and Shokuno-Okusuri Inc.

Dr. Takebe was born and raised in Yokohama, Japan and entered medical school at Yokohama City University. After spending time as a surgical elective at the world’s leading liver transplant center in 2010, he was highly motivated to find alternatives to traditional transplantation as he met many patients who were terminal but were unlikely to be recipients of life-saving donor organs. He earned his M.D. degree at Yokohama City University School of Medicine in 2011. His level of scientific productivity and excellence has resulted in his obtaining an independent position as associate professor at the age of 26 at Yokohama City University and appointed as assistant professor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) in 2015. He, as one founder, recently established multi-disciplinary collaborative hub named Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine (CuSTOM), integrating cutting edge stem cell and organoid infrastructure, basic scientists, clinicians, and surgeons to facilitate research of human biology and disease, with the goal of translating this knowledge to improve pediatric health. Dr. Takebe is also a Principal Investigator at the Takeda-CiRA joint program in 2016, and jointly appointed as full professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University in 2018.

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.