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 also discusses biomaterials to support axon regeneration.

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.

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 Talk and the importance of names for nervous system models. He also discusses CRISPR screening in assembloids to study autism, transplanting cortical organoids into rats, and biocompatible polymers for neural organoids.

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.

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.

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.

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 this year's meeting more accessible to trainees and researchers around the world.

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 field and co-founding BlueRock Therapeutics. He also discusses the challenges of developing cell therapies at scale, strategies to target cognition loss in Parkinson's disease, and combining basic and translational research.

Dr. Boyang Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University. His lab uses advanced biofabrication techniques to build human micro-tissue models for predictive drug discovery and to construct functional macro-tissues for tissue regeneration in patients. He talks about building microfluidic devices for biological applications and using machine learning to study organoid morphology. He also talks about his team's high-throughput system for vascularizing tissue spheroids and his experience starting a company to commercialize this technology.

In this special episode, Daylon and Arun chat with Drs. Jason Goldsmith and Brenda Raud, the hosts of The Immunology Podcast. Recorded in-person and led by Dr. Nicole Quinn from STEMCELL Technologies, the four hosts discuss the impact that podcasting has had on their careers and how it can make science and scientists more accessible. They also talk about the future of science communication and advice for young scientists pursuing careers in academia and industry.