Advertise on podcast: The Stem Cell Podcast

Dr. Ritu Raman is the d’Arbeloff Career Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, where her lab uses robotics and tissue engineering to treat muscle loss. She talks about light-activated muscle grafts, magnetic microparticles to control forces exerted on cells, and strategies for science communication.

Dr. Shiri Gur-Cohen is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Regenerative Medicine at UC San Diego. Her lab studies epithelial stem cells throughout their lifetimes. She talks about lymphatics in the intestinal stem cell niche, 3D imaging techniques, and sharing her science with a wider audience.

Dr. Malin Parmar is a Professor at Lund University and a New York Stem Cell Foundation – Robertson Investigator. Her research aims to understand cell fate specification in the developing brain and in human neural progenitor cells using cell-based models of neuronal differentiation. She talks about using assembloids to model the dopaminergic system, direct reprogramming somatic cells into induced neurons, and developing ESC-derived dopamine progenitor cells to treat Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Olivier Pourquié is the Frank Burr Mallory Professor of Pathology and Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. His work focuses on the segmentation clock and the development of muscles and vertebrae. He talks about studying somitogenesis in vitro and his work on brown fat development.

Dr. Hwee Goon Tay is an Assistant Professor at the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School and Dr. Beau Fenner is an Ophthalmologist at the Singapore National Eye Centre. Their work focuses on cell therapy for degenerative retinal diseases. They talk about strategies to slow degeneration and potentially restore vision.

Dr. Jose Polo is a Professor of Epigenetics and the Director of the Centre for Epigenetics at the University of Adelaide. He is also a Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at Monash University. His lab studies the transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms that govern cell identity. He talks about his team's work on cell fate, iBlastoids, and placental models for SARS-CoV-2.

Dr. Stefan Irion is the Chief Scientific Officer of BlueRock Therapeutics and Dr. Viviane Tabar is the Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  In this special episode, recorded in front of a live audience in New York, they talk about their work on BlueRock's clinical trial for bemdaneprocel — a stem cell-derived investigational cell therapy for Parkinson's disease. They also discuss what's next for cell therapy and diversity in science and in patients.

Dr. Helen Blau is the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professor and Director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology at Stanford University. Dr. Blau’s research focuses on the basic molecular mechanisms of stem cells and muscle and their application to aging, regenerative medicine, and disease. Her lab aims to understand and apply biology to improve quality of life, and their current primary focus is on understanding the gerozyme 15-PGDH. She talks about the roles of NSAIDs and CD47 in muscle regeneration. She also discusses growing cultured meat and writing a children's book!

Dr. Roger Foo is the Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Professor of Medicine and Head of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. His lab investigates the molecular mechanisms that regulate cardiac biology and disease. He talks about the genetics of heart disease and the roles of circular RNAs.

Dr. Bas Trietsch is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Mimetas, a company working to contribute to groundbreaking therapies with their screenable, physiologically relevant 3D human disease models. He talks about tissue-relevant models for drug discovery, and how organ-on-a-chip technology can help address scalability and reproducibility.

Dr. Thorold Theunissen is an Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology at Washington University in St. Louis investigating the molecular basis of pluripotency, the mechanisms of trophoblast development, and the generation of stem cell-based embryo models.

Dr. Nicolas Rivron is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. His group recreates embryonic development using mammalian stem cells in a dish to better understand the encoded principles of self-organization. He talks about building human blastoid models and using them to study implantation. He also discusses differences in development between mice and humans, trophectoderm stem cells, and an ethical framework for embryo models.