Dr. Emma Hammarlund is a Principal Investigator in the Division of Translational Cancer Research at Lund University Cancer Center and the Lund Stem Cell Center. Her lab investigates how the rise of animals on Earth relates to the evolution of stemness control.

Dr. Themasap Khan is the Vice President at Civilization Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in genomics, diagnostics, digital health, AI, and personalized and regenerative medicine.  He leads the firm’s scientific due diligence and academic outreach programs. Dr. Khan earned his in PhD in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine in Dr. Sergiu Pasca’s lab at Stanford, where his research focused on genome engineering, cerebellar organoid models, and live imaging to elucidate biological mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders.

Dr. Johan Jakobsson is a Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics at the Lund Stem Cell Center. His research focuses on epigenetic mechanisms of the brain, including the role of microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, and endogenous retroelements in neural stem cells and neurons.

Dr. Marinna Madrid is Co-Founder of Cellino, an early-stage biotechnology company seeking to make personalized, autologous cell therapies viable at large scale for the first time. Cellino’s platform combines label-free imaging and high-speed laser editing with machine learning to automate cell reprogramming, expansion, and differentiation in a closed cassette format, enabling thousands of patient samples to be processed in parallel in a single facility.

Dr. Brenda Raud is a postdoctoral researcher at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Dr. Jason Goldsmith is the Director of Donor Medical Sciences at Seres Therapeutics. In addition to their work as immunology researchers, Brenda and Jason are also hosts of the new Immunology Podcast, a sister podcast to the Stem Cell Podcast.

Dr. Krishanu Saha is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His lab utilizes quantitative and bioengineering methods including genome editing, biomanufacturing, and disease modeling to advance the next generation of cell and gene therapies.

Dr. Kelly Shepard is the Associate Director of Discovery and Translation at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). CIRM was created by the voters of California in 2004. The agency funds stem cell research at institutions and companies throughout California with the goal of accelerating treatments to patients with unmet medical needs.

Dr. Willy Lensch is Strategic Advisor to the Dean at Harvard Medical School. Previously Executive Director of the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, his experience in research, education, administration, science policy, intellectual property, science consulting, and outreach have combined to support and advance stem cell science and discovery at Harvard.

Dr. Sean Wu is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. The Wu lab seeks to identify mechanisms responsible for human congenital heart disease, and uses mouse models and stem cells to study cardiovascular developmental biology, and to engineer cardiac tissue.

Dr. Jürgen Knoblich is Scientific Director of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The Knoblich lab is known for the development of an organoid model of early brain development, and is currently using iPSCs and cerebral organoids to investigate inter-brain region interactions, neurodevelopmental disorders, and neuronal connections and functions.