Presenter Biosketches

Kristi S. Anseth, Ph.D. is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research interests lie at the interface between biology and engineering where she designs new biomaterials for applications in drug delivery and regenerative medicine. Dr. Anseth’s research group has published over 190 publications in peer-reviewed journals and presented over 170 invited lectures in the fields of biomaterials and tissue engineering. She was the first engineer to be named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and received the Alan T. Waterman Award, the highest award of the National Science Foundation for demonstrated exceptional individual achievement in scientific or engineering research. Dr. Anseth is an elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the Materials Research Society. Dr. Anseth also serves on the editorial boards or as associate editor of Biomacromolecules, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research — Part A, Acta Biomaterialia, and Biotechnology & Bioengineering.

Helen M. Blau, Ph.D. received her B.A. from University of York and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. She is currently the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Professor and Director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology in the Microbiology and Immunology Department at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Blau serves on the editorial boards of Integrative Biology (iBiology) and Molecular Medicine Today/Trends in Molecular Medicine and is an Associate Editor for the FASEB Journal and a Senior Editor for the journals Differentiation and Genes to Cells. She currently serves on the Ellison Medical Foundation Scientific Advisory Board and the Harvard Board of Overseers.

Professor Blau’s research area is in cell and developmental biology. She has had a longstanding interest in stem cell biology and cell specialization, and is especially well known for her research demonstrating plasticity of the differentiated state. Her muscle heterokaryon experiments proved that silent muscle genes can be activated in diverse adult cells and that the differentiated state of a cell requires continuous regulation and is dictated by the balance of regulators present at any given time. Her laboratory is also known for their development of innovative technologies including: developing gene therapy tools, monitoring protein-protein interactions, imaging bioluminescence of beta-galactosidase activity in live mice, and analyzing stem cell behavior dynamically by time lapse microscopy in bioengineered microwells. Recent work in her laboratory is directed toward determining the molecular mechanisms underlying the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells from human somatic cells using heterokaryons. In addition, to overcome a major clinical hurdle, her laboratory is elucidating the molecular nature of niche environments that induce adult stem cell self-renewal, pluripotency and function in vivo.

Sheng Ding, Ph.D. is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, USA. He obtained his B.S. in chemistry with honors from Caltech in 1999, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Scripps in 2003. Dr. Ding has pioneered on developing and applying innovative chemical approaches to stem cell biology and regeneration, with a focus on discovering and characterizing novel small molecules that can control various cell fate/function, including stem cell maintenance, activation, differentiation and reprogramming in various developmental stages and tissues. He has published over 60 research articles, reviews and book chapters, and made several seminal contributions to the stem cell field. Dr. Ding is a cofounder of Fate Therapeutics.

John Gurdon, Kt., DPhil., DSc., FRS was educated at Eton College, where he did Classics, having been advised that he was unsuited for science, and Christ Church, Oxford (Zoology)., completing his PhD with Michael Fischberg on nuclear transplantation in Xenopus. Dr. Gurdon obtained the first clone of genetically identical adult animals and demonstrated genetic totipotency of somatic cell nuclei by obtaining sexually mature frogs from the nuclei of intestinal epithelium. He did postdoctoral work at Cal-Tech, on bacteriophage genetics and moved to MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridge (Chairman Max Perutz), subsequently becoming Head of Cell Biology Division. In 1983, Dr. Gurdon accepted the John Humphrey Plummer Professorship of Cell Biology in University of Cambridge, in the Zoology Department and initiated, with Prof R Laskey, the Cancer Research Campaign unit of Molecular Embryology there. In 1990, he moved to new Wellcome CRC Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology in Cambridge, and served as Chairman 1990-2001. In 2001, the Institute was renamed The Gurdon Institute. Dr. Gurdon served as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge from 1995 to 2002; Governor (= Trustee) of the Wellcome Trust from 1995 to 2000; and, Chairman of the Company of Biologists from 2001 to the present.

Dr. Gurdon’s main directions of research have been:

• nuclear transplantation and mechanisms of reprogramming of somatic cell nuclei;
• the use of Xenopus eggs and oocytes for mRNA microinjection, and hence gene overexpression;
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• analysis of signalling in normal development, and the use of signalling factors for the redirection of cell differentiation.

Dr. Gurdon has received various recognitions (see Who’s Who) including, most recently, the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Science. His interests include skiing, tennis, horticulture, and Lepidoptera.

Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, Ph.D. graduated from the University of Valencia, Spain and received his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna, Italy and the University of Valencia, Spain in 1987. He is currently a Professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California and the Director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona.

He has published over 200 articles in high profile, internationally recognized, peer reviewed journals and book chapters. He is a member of several scientific journal editorial boards, including Development, Developmental Biology, Development Genes & Evolution, the International Journal of Developmental Biology and Mechanisms of Development. He has also organized and spoken at numerous meetings and seminars.

His key scientific interests include the establishment of organ left-right asymmetry, limb and heart development, and stem cell biology and regeneration. He has received several notable honors and awards, including the William Clinton Presidential Award, the Pew Scholar Award, the National Science Foundation Creativity Award, and the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, for his endeavors in these fields. Dr. Izpisúa Belmonte has been at the forefront of developmental biology research. Through the years he has produced novel, groundbreaking results, such as uncovering the role of some homeobox genes in limb patterning and specification, as well as the identification of the molecular mechanisms that determine how the different cell type precursors of internal organs are organized spatially along the embryonic left right axis. Furthermore, his work has started to give us a glimpse into the molecular basis implicated during organ regeneration in higher vertebrates, the differentiation of human stem cells into various tissues, and the molecular basis underlying somatic cell reprogramming.

Laura Kiessling, Ph.D. was born in Milwaukee, WI. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from MIT and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University. After carrying out postdoctoral training in Chemical Biology at the California Institute of Technology, she returned to Wisconsin to begin her independent career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She currently is a Hilldale Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Laurens Anderson Professor of Biochemistry. She also serves as the Director of the Keck Center for Chemical Genomics and the Program Director for the Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program. Her interdisciplinary research interests focus on elucidating and exploiting the mechanisms of cell surface recognition processes. Another major interest of her group is multivalency and its role in recognition and signal transduction. Her research combines tools from organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, structural biology, and molecular and cell biology.

Kiessling’s honors and awards include the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award and the Garvan Award from the American Chemical Society, the Harrison-Howe Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. She serves on several editorial boards and is Editor-In-Chief of ACS Chemical Biology.

Stuart H. Orkin, M.D. was born and raised in New York City. He received a BS in Life Science (Biology) at MIT (1967) and an MD from the Harvard Medical School (1972). Following an internship in pediatrics at the Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard, he performed postdoctoral research in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, NICHHD, NIH (1973-1975) under the supervision of Dr. Philip Leder, presently the Chairman of Genetics at HMS. Upon returning to Boston Children's Hospital, he completed general pediatrics and pediatric hematology-oncology clinical training (1975-1978). In 1978, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1981, and became the first incumbent of the Leland Fikes Professorship of Pediatric Medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1987. He has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1986. In 2000, he became the first incumbent of the David G. Nathan Professorship in Pediatrics and was appointed Chairman of the Department of Pediatric Oncology at the DFCI. He also serves as CEO of Dana Farber-Children’s Hospital Cancer Care.

In his research Dr. Orkin has focused on the molecular genetics of hematologic diseases, the fundamental mechanisms of blood cell development, and stem cell biology. Dr. Orkin's awards and honors include the NIH Career Development Award (1979), the American Federation of Clinical Research Award (1984), the Dameshek Prize of the American Society of Hematology (1986), the Mead-Johnson Award (1987), the Presidency of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (1989), the Warren Alpert Prize (1993), the Helmut Horten Research Award (1995), the Medical Foundation Award for Distinguished Contributions to Health Research (1996), the E. Donnell Thomas Prize of the American Society of Hematology (1998), and the Distinguished Research Award of the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) (2005). He served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome (1987) and as co-chair of the Panel to Assess the NIH Investment in Research on Gene Therapy (1995). Dr. Orkin is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (1991), the Institute of Medicine (1992), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993).

James A. Thomson, Ph.D. derived the first human embryonic stem cell line in 1998 and derived human induced pluripotent stem cells in 2007. He serves as Director of Regenerative Biology at the Morgridge Institute for Research, and is a professor in the University of Wisconsin's School of Medicine and Public Health and the University of California's Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.