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The Fifth Annual New Jersey Stem Cell Research Symposium
Co-sponsored by the Rutgers Stem Cell Research Center and Life Technologies, Inc.
The Fifth Annual New Jersey Stem Cell Research Symposium was held September 21, 2011 at the Bridgewater Marriott. Over 250 scientists attended the day of presentations, posters, and social interaction. Follow the links to review poster abstracts, the presentation schedule, and the entire program booklet. We look forward to seeing you next year for the Sixth Annual Symposium in 2012! Click here to add your name and email address to our mailing list!
The Fourth Annual New Jersey Stem Cell Research Symposium was a great success with over 300 scientists attending.
Abstracts: Abstract submission is now closed.
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Lorenz Studer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
This year's Keynote Speaker was Lorenz Studer. Dr. Studer's lab recently published one of the first studies to use human induced pluripotent cells from a human genetic disease--dysautonomia--to identify affected mechanisms and to suggest therapeutic interventions. Another important publication demonstrated that stem cells could be coerced into producing dopaminergic neurons, the cells that degenerate in Parkinson's disease. Dr. Studer joined MSKCC in 2000 after working with Dr. Ronald McKay at NIH and Dr. Christian Spenger at the University of Bern, Switzerland. In both labs he participated in early tests of fetal tissue transplantation in Parkinson's and the generation of dopaminergic cells from fetal precursors. His laboratory was also first to demonstrate "therapeutic cloning" in a mouse model of a CNS disorder, and he has pioneered studies on the directed differentiation, high-throughput screening and genetic modification of human ES cells. This combination of expertise in therapeutic transplant, neural development, and stem cell differentiation has placed Dr. Studer as a leader in the application of stem cells for human disease. His presentation is titled: "Towards the Application of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells in Drug Discovery and Cell Therapy of the Nervous System."
Panel Discussion: Stem Cell Core Facilities & Services
The symposium included a panel discussion outlining several of the core facilties and services available to stem cell researchers in the New Jersey area. Participating will be (left to right) Drs. Jennifer Moore and Michael Sheldon of the Rutgers University Cell & DNA Repository's NIMH Stem Cell Center, Dr. Chi Tarn of the Coriell Institute's Stem Cell program (including the NIGMS stem cell repository), Dr. David Piper of Life Technologies, Inc., and Dr. Mark Tomishima, Head, Sloan-Kettering Institute, Stem Cell Resarch Facility.
Featured Speakers: New Stem Cell Researchers in New Jersey
Among the invited speakers at this year's meeting were new faculty researchers recently hired at Rutgers and UMDNJ who work with stem cells. Each new faculty member was introduced by a member of their new department.
Kelvin Y. Kwan, from David Corey's lab in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, is joining the Department of Cell Biology & Neuroscience at Rutgers University. His specialty is the study of hair cells of the inner ear and how precursor cells differentiate into functioning hair cells. He spoke on "Multipotent Inner-Ear Progenitor Cells Generated by Retroviral c-Myc Infection Reveal a Molecular Switch from Self-Renewal to Differentiation."
Michael Verzi, from Ramesh Shivdasani's Lab at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School, is a new member of the Department of Genetics at Rutgers University. His goal is to identify how transcription factors mediate gene expression changes necessary for cell fate transition in the intestine, in hopes of understanding why the intestinal epithelium is so susceptible to nutritional and inflammatory diseases and cancer.
The title of his presentation was “Dynamic histone modifications and transcription factor binding patterns as progenitor cells transition to their progeny.”
Lisa K. Denzin, recently of the Sloan-Kettering Institute at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has joined the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, a unit of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Her research focus is to determine how human class II MHC molecules in T cells acquire their antgenic peptide cargo. Her presentation was titled, "The Paf Oncogene is Essential for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Function and Development."