The Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine 2012 was awarded to Shinya Yamanaka and John Gurdon for their discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. Their work has now galvanized the stem cell field into generating patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and using these to model and treat human disease. While these efforts are still in their infancy, other types of stem cells are closer to the clinic, and some of them are moving through clinical trials. The overall goal of the symposium is to bring these two areas of stem cell research together to accelerate progress in the field.

Themes

• Modeling complex disease using stem cells; Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, blood disorders
• Modeling monogenic disease and genetic correction of stem cells; Huntington’s, cardiac disease
• Screening stem cells
• Organogenesis/in vivo reprogramming
• Cell therapy/clinical trials; spinal cord injury, cord blood transplant, retinal disease