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The Promise of Stem Cell Research in Human Health
Speakers
KEYNOTE PRESENTER
Dr. Gilberto R. Sambrano, PhD
Dr. Sambrano joined the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in 2005 as its
first scientific officer. He is currently the senior officer in charge of peer review and
heads the CIRM Training Grant Program.
Dr. Sambrano trained with the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of
California, San Francisco, and he later accepted a faculty position in the department of
Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. In 2001, Dr. Sambrano took on a notable position to
coordinate efforts of the Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS), a multi-institutional
and multi-disciplinary consortium. For several years he served on the UCSF Chancellor’s
Committee on Diversity and as president of the UCSF Postdoctoral Scholars Association.
Dr. Sambrano earned a PhD in biomedical sciences from the University of California,
San Diego.
PANELISTS
Dr. Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff, PhD
Dr. Barcellos-Hoff is a senior scientist and deputy director of the Life Sciences Division
at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The overarching goal of her research is to
understand multicellular processes that cause breast cancer. Dr. Barcellos-Hoff studies
normal mammary gland development, the development of aberrant tissue architecture during
cancer, and how a carcinogen such as radiation promotes cancer progression.
Dr. Barcellos-Hoff earned a BA in Biopsychology in 1978 from the University of Chicago.
She received a PhD in Experimental Pathology from the University of California, San
Francisco in 1986.
Dr. Mary Devereaux, PhD
Dr. Devereaux holds a PhD in philosophy. She specializes in biomedical, research, and
stem-cell ethics.
She is director of Biomedical Seminars in the Research Ethics Program in the
Department of Pathology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and is
responsible for stem cell ethics training at both UCSD and the San Diego Research
Ethics Consortium, a multi-institution core resource created to support the ethical
conduct of stem cell and other research programs.
Dr. Devereaux also serves as a faculty associate at the Center for Ethics in Science
and Technology and is co-founder and director of the UCSD Biomedical Ethics Seminar
Series, a monthly meeting of research scientists, medical clinicians, philosophers, and
administrators to discuss issues such as human subject research, informed consent, and
conflict of interest. She also directs Tough Cases, a monthly seminar in medical ethics.
Dr. Devereaux serves on the Hospital Ethics Committee at UCSD Medical Center and
provides ethics training to graduate students in the sciences, the School of Medicine, and
the Skaggs School of Pharmacy.
Recent publications address ethical issues raised by embryonic stem cell research,
cosmetic surgery and other forms of medical enhancement, and prenatal testing.
Dr. Mohammed El Majdoubi, PhD
Dr. El Majdoubi is an assistant professor of biology at Dominican University of
California. His research is focused on investigating the differentiation of mouse
embryonic stem cells into hormone-secreting neurons in vitro.
Before joining Dominican in 2005, Dr. El Majdoubi held several research scientist
positions in the field of reproductive physiology. At the University of Pittsburgh
(1997-1999), he investigated the neurobiological trigger of puberty in primates. At the
University of California, San Francisco (2000-2005), he studied the reproductive and
metabolic consequences of altered secretion of GnRH, the main hormone of reproduction.
He also served as co-director of the morphology and cell imaging core at UCSF.
Dr. El Majdoubi has published 18 scientific papers and has given more than 20
presentations at international conferences.
Dr. El Majdoubi earned his MS and PhD in Neuroscience & Pharmacology from the
University of Bordeaux, France.
Dr. Warren Hoeffler, PhD
Dr. Hoeffler is the founder of Xgene Corporation, a company commercializing discoveries in
tissue engineering.
His research interests focus on 3-D organ models (AccuOrgansTM), created by spontaneous
cell sorting, a process that taps into cell motility and adhesion to form multiple tissue
layers. Skin epithelial stem cells are routinely isolated for inclusion in AccuSkinTM, and
in collaboration progenitor clones derived from embryonic stem cells incorporated into 3-D
models showed superior remodeling capability. News that skin cells can be reprogrammed to
the equivalent of the embryonic state opens the potential for engineering replacement
organs.
Dr. Hoeffler has served on the faculty at the Department of Dermatology at Stanford
University School of Medicine. He conducted postdoctoral research at Genentech.
Dr. Hoeffler’s research interests are tissue engineering 3-D organ cultures created by
spontaneous cell sorting for use in wound healing, disease, aging, and for animal-free
testing; stem cell incorporation into engineered tissue; genome organization; and
regulation of gene expression by DNA binding proteins.
Dr. Renee Reijo Pera, PhD
Dr. Reijo Pera is professor and director of the Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell
Research and Education within the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and
Regenerative Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Stanford
University School of Medicine.
Dr Reijo Pera is an internationally recognized leader in embryonic stem cell
research and is highly regarded for her scientific accomplishments as well as for her
achievements as an educator and mentor. Her laboratory is focused on understanding key
cell fates in the embryo, including the generation of pluripotent stem cells, somatic and
germ cell lineages.
Dr. Reijo Pera was a Damon Runyon Fellow at the Whitehead Institute at MIT before
joining the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco in 1997. She was
recruited to direct Stanford’s Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and
Education in April 2007.
She has received numerous awards for her work, including the American Stem Cell
Research Foundation Award and UCSF’s Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. In September
2006, Dr. Reijo Pera was cited by Newsweek magazine as one of the 20 most influential
women in the United States.
Dr. Reijo Pera received her PhD from Cornell.
Dr. Xianmim Zeng, PhD
Dr. Zeng is assistant professor and director of the North Bay CIRM Shared Research
Laboratory for Stem Cells and Agingat the Buck Institute for Age Research.
Dr. Zeng started her research in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) while conducting
her post doctoral training at National Institute of Aging and the National Institute on
Drug Abuse. One of her major contributions to the stem cell field was the successful
generation of dopaminergic neurons from hESCs. Dr. Zeng and her colleagues showed that
these neurons could be grafted into the brains of Parkinson’s disease model animals,
illuminating the principle of cell replacement therapy for neurodegenerative disorders
including Parkinson’s disease.
Dr. Zeng joined the faculty of the Buck Institute for Aging Research in California in
2005. The Zeng laboratory is studying neuronal differentiation of hESCs that may
facilitate the derivation of a cell population for transplantation therapy, as well as
developing hESC-based models for normal human neurons.
Dr. Zeng earned a PhD in molecular biology from the Technical University of Denmark.
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