The Stem Cell Podcast

Guest: Dr. Emma Rawlins is a Senior Group Leader at the Gurdon Institute in the Department of Physiology, Development, and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. She talks about modeling fetal lung development using organoids , using single-cell RNA sequencing to create a human lung fetal atlas , and her advice to trainees to follow their hearts. Featured Products and Resources: Register for...

Guest: Dr. Insoo Hyun is the Director of the Center for Life Sciences and Public Learning at the Museum of Science in Boston, and a Member of the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics. He talks about embryo models for early development, his work on the ISSCR’s guidelines for stem cell research, and advances in reproductive medicine. Featured Products and Resources: Meet the hosts of th...

Guest: Dr. Aileen Anderson is the Director of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. Her lab investigates the role of inflammatory mechanisms in degeneration and regeneration in the injured central nervous system. She talks about cell therapy for spinal cord injury and how academic labs can collaborate with companies to move toward the clinic. She...

Guest: Dr. Shannon McKinney-Freeman is a Principal Investigator and Member at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Her lab focuses on the fundamental biology of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs).  She talks about the role of HSCs in sickle cell disease and the state of HSC transplantation research. She also discusses her work on hematopoietic progenitor expansion . Featured Products and Reso...

Guest: Dr. Sergiu Pașca is the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program. His lab has pioneered and applied neural organoid and assembloid technologies to make discoveries in fundamental and clinical neuroscience. He talks about the response to his viral TED T...

Guest: Dr. Stylianos Lefkopoulos is an Associate Editor of  Nature Cell Biology . He talks about a day in the life of an editor and what he looks for in a manuscript. He also discusses the role of preprints in publishing and promoting diversity in STEM. Featured Products and Resources: Register for ISSCR 2023, taking place in Boston June 14-17. Submit your best cell image to the #StemCellfie conte...

Guest: Dr. Noriaki Ono is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Health Center at Houston. His research focuses on bone development and regeneration. He talks about in vivo lineage tracing techniques and  how early perichondrial cells contribute to developing bones . He also discusses the art and science of dentistry, mentorship, and moving his lab across the country. Featured Products...

Guest: Dr. Ryan Conder is the Director of Epithelial and Organoid Systems at STEMCELL Technologies .  He talks about the next phase in organoid research and what questions organoids can help answer. He also discusses his experience doing a postdoc in Vienna, and Vancouver as a growing biotech hub. Featured Products and Resources: Register for ISSCR 2023, taking place in Boston June 14-17. Download...

Guests: Keith Alm is the CEO, Dr. Haifan Lin is the President, and Dr. David Scadden is 2023 Annual Meeting Program Chair of the ISSCR. They talk about the upcoming annual meeting being held this year in Boston, a biotech hub with a vibrant stem cell research community. They discuss the highlights of this year’s program including speakers, award winners, and more. They also discuss making th...

Guest: Dr. Lorenz Studer is the Director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute. His lab exploits recent advances in stem cell biology to develop new therapies for degenerative diseases and cancer. Their projects involve directing the fate and age of hPSCs, modeling diseases, and developing cell therapies. He talks about his journey into the stem cell fiel...

Guest: Dr. Boyang Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University. His lab uses advanced biofabrication techniques to build human micro-tissue models for predictive drug discovery and to construct functional macro-tissues for tissue regeneration in patients. He talks about building microfluidic devices for biological applications and using machine learning to study o...

Guests: In this special episode, Daylon and Arun chat with Drs. Jason Goldsmith and Brenda Raud, the hosts of The Immunology Podcast . Recorded in-person and led by Dr. Nicole Quinn from STEMCELL Technologies , the four hosts discuss the impact that podcasting has had on their careers and how it can make science and scientists more accessible. They also talk about the future of science communicati...

Guest: Dr. Clive Svendsen is the Executive Director of the Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai. His lab uses stem cells to develop models and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. He talks about using stem cells to model spinal muscular atrophy and the blood-brain barrier , and his cell-gene therapy trial for ALS . Featured Products and Resources: Keep current with the latest neur...

Guest: Dr. Shuibing Chen is the Kilts Family Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her lab uses hiPSCs and ESCs for disease modeling and drug screening, with a focus on diabetes and infectious diseases such as Zika and SARS-CoV-2 . She talks about her recent genome-wide association study in a dish , the role of philanthropic funding in stem cell research, and the role of industry partner...

Guest: Dr. Paola Arlotta is the Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. She is interested in understanding the molecular laws that govern the birth, differentiation, and assembly of the human brain’s cerebral cortex.  She talks about using organoids to study the genetics of autism . She also discusses single-cell sequencing of brain organoids and how to...

Guest: Dr. Jacob Hanna is an Associate Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and investigates cellular reprogramming and embryogenesis. This episode features a discussion on the challenges of growing embryo models in a roller culture system and the feasibility of making human gametes. Dr. Hanna also talks about launching the startup, Renewal Bio , the ethical discussions surrounding stem...

Guest: Dr. Stefan Irion is the Senior Vice President of Research at BlueRock Therapeutics , a leading engineered cell therapy company with a mission to develop regenerative medicines for intractable diseases. He talks about the company’s Parkinson’s disease trial and the challenges of genetically manipulating stem cells. He also discusses his journey from physician to scientist and his...

Guest: Dr. Jun Wu is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Southwestern . The Wu lab uses interspecies chimeras to study fundamental biology: conserved and divergent developmental programs, determination of body and organ size, species barriers, and cancer resistance. They are also working to develop new applications for regenerative medicine. He talks about developmental compatibility...

Guest: Dr. Edward Grow is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, Southwestern . His lab studies reproductive biology, specifically the development of the egg and subsequently the fertilized embryo. He talks about regulating totipotency in ESCs , retroviral reactivation , and ex vivo culturing of follicles and oocytes. Featured Products and Resources: Keep Current with the Latest in ESC...

Guest: Dr. Prisca Liberali is a Senior Group Leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research and an Assistant Professor at the University of Basel. Her research aims to understand the collective properties of organoid systems and their patterns, including how these systems allow systematic perturbation by established methods for modulating gene expression. She studies self-organ...

Guests: Drs. Tenneille Ludwig, Peter Andrews, and Madeline Lancaster are members of the ISSCR Standards Initiative for Pluripotent Stem Cell Research . They discuss the need for basic and preclinical standards to ensure rigor and reproducibility in stem cell research. They also talk about standards for pluripotency and model systems, and the initiative’s international focus. Featured Product...

Guest: Dr. Jackie Damen is a currently a Principal Scientist in Scientific Support for Hematology at STEMCELL Technologies , and was previously the Director of Contract Assay Services. She talks about the company’s culture and growth, and how in her role, she teaches scientists and helps them conduct their experiments. She also discusses systems for drug screening and discovery, opportunitie...

Guest: Dr. Marian Hettiaratchi is an Assistant Professor at the Knight Campus at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on affinity-based biomaterials to promote tissue and bone repair. She talks about the delivery vehicles for these biomaterials, and her recent work on heparin-mediated delivery of BMP-2 to promote bone regeneration . Featured Products and Resources: Keep current with the...

Guest: Dr. Lydia Finley is an Assistant Member of the Cell Biology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The Finley lab investigates how cellular metabolic pathways regulate cell fate decisions in stem cells and cancer cells. She talks about the metabolic profiles and needs of different cell types, her lab’s discovery of an alternate TCA cycle, and how track and field led her to...

In June 2022, we attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) annual meeting in San Francisco. We spoke with delegates to get their impressions of the meeting. They discussed the most memorable research presented and shared their thoughts on the challenges facing the stem cell field. Featured Products and Resources: Which organoid are you? Take the quiz! If you need help trans...