The Stem Cell Podcast

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 personal connection to Parkinson's disease.

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 between species, and the similarities and differences between blastoid models and blastocyts. He also discusses the challenges of growing human cells in animals, and human-monkey chimeric embryos.

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.

Dr. Prisca Liberali is 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-organization, symmetry breaking, intestinal organoid development, gastruloids, and mechanosensing mechanisms.

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.

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, opportunities in industry, and her affinity for microscopy and photography.

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.

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 pursue metabolism research.

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.

In June 2022, we attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) annual meeting in San Francisco, and recorded daily episodes discussing highlights of the previous 24 hours. Here is the final of four special episodes from the meeting.