The Stem Cell Podcast

Guests: Dr. Stefan Irion is the Chief Scientific Officer of BlueRock Therapeutics and Dr. Viviane Tabar is the Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  In this special episode, recorded in front of a live audience in New York, they talk about their work on BlueRock’s clinical trial for bemdaneprocel — a stem cell-derived investigational cell therapy...

Guest: Dr. Helen Blau is the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professor and Director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology at Stanford University. Dr. Blau’s research focuses on the basic molecular mechanisms of stem cells and muscle and their application to aging, regenerative medicine, and disease. Her lab aims to understand and apply biology to improve quality of life, and thei...

Guest: Dr. Roger Foo is the Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Professor of Medicine and Head of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. His lab investigates the molecular mechanisms that regulate cardiac biology and disease. He talks about the genetics of heart disease and the roles of circular RNAs. Featured Products and Resources: Register for a live podcast recor...

Guest: Dr. Bas Trietsch is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Mimetas , a company working to contribute to groundbreaking therapies with their screenable, physiologically relevant 3D human disease models. He talks about tissue-relevant models for drug discovery, and how organ-on-a-chip technology can help address scalability and reproducibility. Featured Products and Resources: Registe...

Guest: Dr. Thorold Theunissen is an Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology at Washington University in St. Louis investigating the molecular basis of pluripotency, the mechanisms of trophoblast development, and the generation of stem cell-based embryo models. Dr. Rowan Karvas is a CRM Fellow in Regenerative Medicine working in the Theunissen lab. They talk about their recent work developing ...

Guest: Dr. Nicolas Rivron is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. His group recreates embryonic development using mammalian stem cells in a dish to better understand the encoded principles of self-organization. He talks about  building human blastoid models  and using them to study implantation. He also discusses differ...

Guests: Dr. Laura Andres-Martin is a Research Investigator, Oncology, Dr. Daniel Paul is the Senior VP, Discovery & Platform Development, and Dr. Raeka Aiyar is the VP, Scientific & DEIB Outreach at the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF). This episode was recorded live and in-person at the NYSCF Research Institute. The panelists talk about NYSCF’s approach to automation, their wom...

Guest: Dr. Nathaniel Huebsch is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. His lab focuses on understanding how mechanical cues originating at cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix contacts influence signaling and fate. They are especially interested in how those cues affect heart development and disease. He talks about cardiac models and cardiomyocyt...

Guest: Dr. Thomas Durcan is an Associate Professor and Director of the Early Drug Discovery Unit at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He oversees a team of 40+ research staff and students, committed to applying patient-derived stem cells towards the development of phenotypic discovery assays and 3D neuronal organoid models for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. He talks about m...

In June 2023, we attended ISSCR 2023, the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, in Boston. We spoke with delegates about their research and impressions of the meeting, including their reasons for attending, what they were most looking forward to, and the most memorable research presented. Featured Products and Resources: Register for a live, in-person podcast recordin...

Guest: Dr. Thomas Zwaka is the Director of the Huffington Center for Cell-Based Research in Parkinson’s Disease and a Professor of Regenerative and Developmental Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His research focuses on fundamental questions surrounding stem cell biology, including how to reverse the process of differentiation and “re-program” any given cell type into a...

Guest: In June 2023, Daylon and Arun attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s (ISSCR) annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, and recorded daily episodes discussing highlights of the final day of the meeting. In this episode, they discuss some of the research presented during Concurrent Track E, as well as Plenary V and VI, which were focused on modeling development and d...

Guest: In June 2023, Daylon and Arun attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s (ISSCR) annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, and recorded daily episodes discussing highlights of the third day of the meeting. In this episode, they discuss the research presented throughout Concurrent Tracks C & D, as well as some of the meeting drama that resulted. They also highlight...

Guest: In June 2023, Daylon and Arun attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s (ISSCR) annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, and recorded daily episodes discussing highlights of the second day of the meeting. In this episode, they discuss Concurrent Tracks A & B and highlight some of the research on epigenetic regulation of distinct cell states presented during Plena...

Guest: In June 2023, Daylon and Arun attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s (ISSCR) annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, and recorded daily episodes discussing highlights of the first day of the meeting. In this episode, they discuss the pre-meeting workshops, including Arun’s own talk on stem cell research in space, as well as highlights from the morning&#8217...

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...