The Stem Cell Podcast

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.

Dr. Vivian Li is Group Leader of the Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute. The Li lab investigates how Wnt signalling controls stem cells in the healthy gut and during colorectal cancer development. The lab also aims to engineer function intestinal constructs using patient-derived intestinal organoids.

Dr. Samira Musah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. The Musah Lab applyies stem cell biology to engineer functional models of the human kidney and brain, with the goal of developing novel therapeutic modalities for human kidney diseases.

Dr. Christopher Thomas Scott is the Dalton Tomlin Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. Scott is also emeritus faculty of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics. His research centers on the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging biotechnologies.

Dr. Matthias Lutolf is a Professor and Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Stem Cell Bioengineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. His lab uses cutting-edge bioengineering strategies for guiding stem-cell-based development for the assembly of next-generation organoids with improved reproducibility and physiological relevance.

In this special episode of the Stem Cell Podcast, we speak with three PhD students — Nathasia Mudiwa Muwanigwa, Sarthak Sinha, and Naveed Tavakol — about their research into brain organoids, organ-on-chip systems, and regeneration in different mammals.

Dr. Miki Ebisuya is a Group Leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Barcelona. Her lab reconstitutes developmental mechanisms by making artificial gene circuits, and studies interspecies differences by comparing organoids of different animals.