Current Stem Cell Research & Therapy

Professor Xiaosong Gu is the director of China National Ministry of Education and Jiangsu Key Lab of Neuroregeneration and is a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has led an active research team to make outstanding innovative achievements in the fields of tissue engineering and nerve regeneration. In brief, (1) tissue engineered nerve and nerve regeneration; (2) translation of tissue engineered nerve grafts to the clinic; (3) the regulatory roles and mechanisms of non-coding RNAs in peripheral nerve regeneration. Pro. Gu has published more than 100 academic articles in SCI-indexed journals, which includes Nature Communication, Brain, Progress in Neurobiology, Biomaterials, NAR and so on. And he also holds a number of Chinese and international invention patents.

Dr. Shi received his medical degree and Ph.D. at Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China. His interest is broadly in radiation medicine and regenerative medicine, with a special focus on the research of stem cells for the management of severe difficult-to-heal traumatic injuries. He has published more than 110 peer-reviewed papers and filed 12 patents/inventions.

Dr. Marco TATULLO is Author/Co-Author of more than 100 scientific proceedings in Italian and European conferences and over 75 research articles (total IF>100; h-Index>20 on Scopus) in the last 8 years, published in international journals, indexed on PubMED, WoS and SCOPUS. Dr. TATULLO won 1st prize in “Robert Frank Award” Basic Research, Senior category in 2017 and, he was selected to represent CED-IADR in “Hatton award” competition during the recent general meeting in London on July 2018.

Jaideep Banerjee received his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He completed his post-doctoral training at the US Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio, Texas and George Washington University in Washington, DC. Over the last 10 years, Dr. Banerjee has been involved with various aspects of wound healing research and is also an editor for the journal Advances in Wound Care and Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. He has also worked as a consultant with Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and with Mike O’Callaghan Military Medical Center. Currently, he is a Medical Science Liaison in the Dept. of Clinical Affairs (Research and Development) at Smith and Nephew. His work involves educating health care providers and clinical research.

Dr. Weihua Gong working as a surgeon at Second Affliated Hospital of Zhejiang University achieved his doctoral degree from Charité-University Medicine at Berlin, joint school of Humboldt University and Berlin Free University. Afterwards, he experienced his postdoctoral work at UCLA and Harvard Medical School. As a visiting scholar, Dr. Gong received short-term clinical training at the Cancer Institute Hospital of JFCR. Now he serves as editorial board member of Journal of Translational Medicine.

Dr. Li completed his Ph.D. at Mount Sinai Sch. Medicine, postdoctoral at Whitehead Inst./MIT, and fellowship at Harvard. His research consists of cancer stem cell; iPSC; brain tumor; ex vivo, in vitro, in vivo model; cancer genome, single-cell transcriptome; tumor microenvironment. He taught as adjunct professor at CSUF and at CSUCI. He serves on editorial board of Am. J. Pathol., Curr. Stem Cell Res. and Ther., World J. Stem Cells (Editor-in-Chief), PLOS ONE (Academic Editor), Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery, Cells (Switzerland), and with membership of ACTS, ISSCR, SfN, ASCB, ASIP, and Royal Society of Medicine (elected overseas fellow).

Alexander Seifalian, Professor of Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine worked at the Royal Free Hospital and University College London for over 26 years, during this time he spent a year at Harvard Medical School looking at caused of cardiovascular diseases and a year at Johns Hopkins Medical School looking at the treatment of liver. He published more than 647 peer-reviewed research papers and registered 14 UK and International patents. On editorial boards of 41 journals. He is currently CEO of NanoRegMed Ltd, working on the commercialisation of his research. In 2007 he was awarded the top prize in the field for the development of nanomaterials and technologies for cardiovascular implants by Medical Future Innovation, and in 2009 he received a Business Innovation Award from UK Trade & Investment. He was the European Life Science Awards’ Winner of Most Innovative New Product 2012 for the “synthetic trachea”. Prof Seifalian won the Nanosmat Prize in 2013 and in 2016 he received the Distinguish Research Award in recognition of his outstanding work in regenerative medicine from Heals Healthy Life Extension Society.

I am Professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. I am coordinating the Stem Cell and Bioengineering Laboratory at the Department of Cell Biology, Embryology and Genetics. I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy in 1989, the Master degree in 1992 and 1995 the Ph.D. degree in Sciences. My Laboratory investigates the therapeutic role of placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), obtained from healthy donors at the Hospital of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (HU/UFSC, Brazil).

Hossein Baharvand is a distinguished Professor and Director of Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology. He has focused his research interests on improving the translational research and regenerative medicine mainly through the understanding of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology and Biologically inspired Engineering. He is the editor of four international books. He has published 265 international peer-reviewed papers, as well as seven chapters in international books. As of Sep 2016, Google Scholar reports over 5600 citations and h-index 40 to his work. He has received 29 international and national awards including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-Equatorial Guinea international prize (2014) for research in life sciences aimed at improving the quality of human life with his stem cell research and its numerous applications in regenerative medicine.

Dr. Karen Ballen is the Cancer Center Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA and the Section Chief for Hematology, Stem Cell Transplant, and Hematologic Malignancy at the University of Virginia Health System. She was graduated from Harvard College and Dartmouth Medical School. Her career has been devoted to the care of patients with leukemia and patients needing stem cell transplantation. Her clinical research expertise is in umbilical cord blood transplantation and outcome results. She has published over 150 papers on this topic. She is the Chairman of the Cord Blood Advisory Committee of the National Marrow Donor Program, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. She is Associate Editor of the journal Bone Marrow Transplantation and Lead Editor for Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

Dr. Banna, MD since 1998 and Oncologist since 2002, is currently working in Catania, Italy, as Clinical Lead of a Division of Medical Oncology and take a particular clinical and research interest in thoracic and genitourinary cancers, anticancer oral therapy, gynecological hereditary tumors and cancer stem cell. He promoted local multidisciplinary clinical activities and research in these fields. He contributed to the publication of several papers in scientific journal, as well as presentations at and organization of local and national conference. He spent observerships at the Lung Cancer Unit of the Guy’s Hospital and at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Suparno Chakrabarti is the Program Director for Blood and Marrow Transplantation at Dharamshila Hospital and Research Centre, New Delhi, India. He initiated the first Haploidentical BMT program in India and along with Dr Sarita Jaiswal has developed this as a sustained alternate donor program with over 50 Haploidentical transplants in the past 4 years. They have explored modifications of PTCY based protocols with PBSC graft to improve the outcome of Haploidentical transplantation in Refractory leukemia, Aplastic Anemia and Hemoglobinopathies.Dr Chakrabarti trained in Internal Medicine at PGIMER,Chandigarh in India. Subsequently, he spent 12 years in the UK, initially as a research fellow and subsequently as a consultant. During this period, he played a substantial role in developing Campath-1H based T cell depletion and reduced intensity conditioning. The bulk of his research also focussed on post-transplant virus infections. He has over 80 publications to his credit.

Kun-Che Chang was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He received his B.S. in Life Science from National Dong Hwa University (Taiwan) in 2006 and his M.S. in Biotechnology from National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan) in 2008. After worked at National Taiwan University for 1 year, he transited to University of Minnesota, Dept. of Pharmacology as a research assistant from 2010 to 2011. He joined the Toxicology PhD program at University of Colorado and worked at Dr. J. Mark Petrash’s lab for his doctoral training at Dept. of Ophthalmology. He obtained his PhD degree focusing on prevention of ocular inflammation in 2015.

En-Qiang Chen received a doctor degree in Clinical Medicine from Sichuan University of China (2012) and completed the physician training of both general internal medicine and hepatology in West China Hospital of Sichuan University. At present, En-Qiang Chen is appointed associate professor at Infectious Diseases Center of West China Hospital. Over the last 10 years, En-Qiang Chen has focused his scientific interests on the topics related to Stem cell therapy for liver diseases as well as the pathogenesis and new strategies for the treatment of liver disease.

Prof. Massimo Conese received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Pathology from the University of Naples, Italy. During the Ph.D., he spent one year and a half at the Institute of Microbiology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Currently, Prof. Conese is Associate Professor in Pathology at the University of Foggia, Italy. Previously, he was Research Assistant at the Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy and Group Leader of the Institute for Experimental Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis, H. S. Raffaele, Milan, Italy. He has published more than 100 scientific publications and is co-authors in 10 chapter books.

Professor Marc H. Dahlke is a lecturer for experimental surgery at Regensburg University, Germany. He is also an attending surgeon at Regensburg University Medical Center. Dr Dahlke has received his MD degree from Hannover Medical School in 2002 and his PhD degree from the same institution in 2004 after graduating from the MD/PhD program for molecular medicine. He has received specialty training in surgery as a fellow at the University of Sydney (Australia) and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, USA.

Dr. Datta is as Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Kent State University. He obtained his doctorate (Ph.D.) in Chemistry from University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Post-doctoral experience from Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Datta works on tumor suppressor protein, p67 and has published more than 50 research articles. Dr. Datta teaches two semester Biochemistry courses for senior undergraduate and graduate students.

Medical Doctor, Neurologist and Paediatrician title obtained in University of São Paulo, Brazil; Specialisation in biology, pathology and neuromuscular development, Université Paris VII and Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital, France, PhD (1988 to 1990); Master of Science (MsC) in Neurology, USP (1994) and second PhD in Bioprocess and biotechnology in Health Science, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil (2006). From 2001 to 2008, head of the Experimental Preclinical Laboratory Research on stem cell therapy and translation at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná. Since 2006, head of the “Cell Therapy and Biotechnology in Regenerative Medicine” Research Group, particularly in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Pelé Pequeno Príncipe Institute, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. Researcher from Bench-to-bedside. Professor of Pequeno Príncipe College, Supervisor of Bachelor, Master and Doctoral Theses. Editor and patent’s author.

Dr. Win-Ping Deng is Deputy Dean and Distinguished University Professor at College of Oral Medicine, Taipei Medical University (TMU) Taiwan. He obtained his doctorate from Harvard University USA in 1993. In 2000, Dr. Deng joined the Graduate Institute of Biomedical Materials and Tissue Engineering, Taipei Medical University (TMU) Taiwan as a Director, where he established and directed Stem Cell Research Center. Dr. Deng research focuses on cell therapy and regenerative medicine for treatment of oral, musculoskeletal and cancer disorders. Owing to his outstanding research accomplishments, he is also honored with editorial board membership of prestigious journal Biomaterials.

Mohammadreza Baghaban Eslaminejad earned his PhD from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran and joined Royan Institute in 2004. He founded the adult stem cell lab and started his research on mesenchymal stem cells. The aim of this lab was to utilize stem cells for treatment of orthopedic diseases, especially bone and cartilage defects. He has done research on various animal models such as mouse, rabbit and dog, the result of which has been published in 180 papers and 190 abstracts in national and international journals and conferences. Moreover, he has contributed in 15 international books.

Daniela Fanni graduated and specialized in Pathology at the Medical School of the University of Cagliari (Italy), she achieved the PhD degree in Molecular and Experimental Oncology at the University of Pisa (Italy). Currently, she works as a Medical Doctor at the University Hospital of Cagliari, where she is involved either in routine diagnosis either in didactic programs and in research projects. She is expert in topics as histopathology/immunophenotype of human stem/progenitors cells, development/organogenesis, fetal/perinatal programming. In all these fields she is the author of several original papers.

Dr. Michael Franti is working as a Director (Regenerative Medicine) at Boehringer Ingelheim, Ridgefield, CT, US. He has over 14 years of pharmaceutical industry experience and 3 years of post-doctoral experience. Currently, he is in charge of the global Regenerative Medicine strategy portfolio. Dr. Franti obtained his PhD (Molecular Virology) in 2001 from University of Pierre and Marie, Paris, France. He has around 34 scientific publications to his credit.

R. Gangaraju received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology with a wealth of experience in preclinical pharmacology, animal model development and drug discovery with specific training and expertise in key research areas including signal transduction pathways in mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial cells. His laboratory focuses on the neurovascular unit (NVU) of the retina in health and disease. They primarily utilize preclinical in vitro and in vivo models to investigate the potential of their findings for clinical translation, with the long-term goal of advancing the clinical management of diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration and visual deficits of traumatic brain injury. He serves as the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board. His successful collaborations led to several peer-reviewed publications, conference abstracts and patent applications for each project. He also served as the reviewer of several biomedical journals and grant agencies including UK Diabetes and DoD.

Prof. Wolf-Dieter Grimm is a Clinical Periodontist who graduated from dentistry, Pavlov First State Medical University of St. Petersburg in 1968. He worked for Technical University Dresden, for Academy of Postgraduate Programs in Dentistry Schwerin, and for University of Witten/Herdecke, Periodontology, Department of Dental Medicine, Faculty of Health, Germany, 1991 to date as chair of Periodontology and now as emeritus. Prof. Grimm has developed several methods for Minimal-invasive and Regenerative Periodontology. Prof. Grimm is Diplomate of Periodontology® (German Society of Periodontology/European Federation of Periodontology). His current stem cell research is focused on adult (somatic) stem cells and the regulation of their fundamental biological properties including differentiation, proliferation, and migration. He is further interested in the impact of pro- and anti-inflammatory signals on mesenchymal stem cells (progenitor of bone, fat and cartilage tissues) and in neural crest-derived stem cells within the head region.

Jerome Guicheux, PhD-D.Sc., INSERM research director/professor JG is the co-director of the INSERM lab U791 (Nantes, France). JG is the elected president of the French Society for mineralized tissue biology and the national coordinator of the french osteoarthritis network. He is author or coauthor of 140 international publications (h-index 42), 8 patents and 71 invited lectures. His research activities focus on the development, pathophysiology and regenerative medicine of the skeleton with particular attention to stem cells and biomaterials for the repair of cartilage and intervertebral disc.

Dr. Harris is a graduate of Wake Forest University where he obtained BS in Biology, Mathematics and Psychology. He earned his Doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology in 1982. In 1989 Dr. Harris joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in the Department of Immunology. Dr. Harris established the first cord blood bank in 1992. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the University of Arizona Biorepository, as well as Director of Quality at the GMP Laboratory. His research interests include stem cells and regenerative medicine.

Dr. John Douglas Jackson is an Associate Professor in the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine since 2012. He did M.S and PhD in Medical sciences program from University of Nebraska, Medical Center in 1983 and 1987, respectively. He has published around 85 Papers in Refereed Journals and 20 book chapters so far.

Dr. Jinesh completed his PhD in Biotechnology at Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Trivandrum, India, with deep interests in studying cancer cell biology. He had undergone post-doctoral trainings at Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel and at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA where he discovered blebbishield emergency program which helps the cancer stem cells to undergo cellular transformation after commitment of apoptosis to evade genomic instability and immune phagocytosis checkpoints and to exhibit enhanced glycolysis, tumorigenesis and metastasis. Dr. Jinesh has multiple first authored cell biology publications and has deep interests in drug discovery, cancer stem cell biology, genomics, and immunology. He is currently a research scientist at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa, FL, USA.

Dr. Ji Hyun Kim is an Instructor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM). Dr. Kim's research efforts in the tissue engineering and regenerative medicine address shortage of transplantable organs by providing functional engineered tissues in a clinically relevant manner. Dr. Kim has focused on establishing novel strategies to efficiently restore tissue function for treating critical size defects using tissue-engineering technologies and cell-based therapies. Dr. Kim is particularly interested in the fields of designing 3D microenvironment for tissue engineering applications, 3D bioprinting biomimetic tissues or organs for functional repair, repair of clinical-scaled tissue injury through efficient delivery of cells, in vivo organogenesis and in situ tissue regeneration.

Dr. Zaal Kokaia obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in neuroscience from the University of Lund, Sweden. Dr. Kokaia also holds PhD in neurophysiology from I. Beritashvili Institute of Physiology, Tbilisi, Georgia. Currently Dr. Kokaia is the Professor of Experimental Medial Research at Lund University, Sweden. He is also Director of Lund Stem Cell Center and heads Laboratory of Stem Cells and Restorative Neurology. He coordinates Strategic Research Area in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine (StemTherapy) at Lund University supported by Swedish Government. His research interests are generation and characterization of neural stem cell lines from different sources and through reprogramming and development of stem cell-based treatments for stroke.

Dr. Biao Kong obtained his Ph.D. degree (in 2015) from Monash University and Fudan University, based in Melbourne (Australia) and Shanghai (China) respectively. Presently, he is employed at Fudan University as Professor in the Department of Chemistry (Laboratory of Advanced Materials). His research interests include the following: Multifunctional porous nanoprobes for in vivo imaging & biosensing; Highly integrated nanoporousdevices for disease diagnosis and treatment; and, Design and synthesis of porous materials for catalysis, energy storage and conversion. Dr. Kong has published over 65 manuscripts and his documents have received considerable number of total citations, i.e. greater than 4,060.

Dr Kumar is working as senior scientist at ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes, Hisar, Haryana, India. He obtained his MVSc and PhD in Animal Biotechnology from ICAR- NDRI, Karnal, India where he established simple and defined media for improved production of buffalo embryos, method for isolation of inner cell mass from blastocysts for derivation of embryonic stem cells, procedures for differentiation of ESCs to neurogenic and myogenic lineages and produced India’s first handmade cloned buffalo calf in 2009. During his post- doctoral fellowship at Institute of Farm Animal Genetics, Neustadt, Germany, generated iPS cells using transposon mediated reprogramming of fibroblasts and differentiated these cells into eye lens specific lineage. Currently, we are working on buffalo cloning to multiply superior bulls to meet out demand of semen for breed improvement. A total of 10 cloned bulls have produced in which 7 are from single animal.

Dr. Li obtained his PhD at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, postdoctoral at Whitehead Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He is Principal Investigator at CHOC Children’s Hospital/University of California-Irvine School of Medicine and adjunct professor of California State University Fullerton and Sun Yat-sen University. He has 148+ publications including the peer-reviewed articles and 25 U.S.-issued patents, as remarked in Nature, Science, Cell, Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology, with citations of 7,000+. He serves on editorial board of American Journal of Pathology (2008-) and as member of ACTS, ISSCR, SfN, ASCB, ASN, ASIP.

Dr. Modo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh in 2011, he was a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, where he also obtained his PhD in neuroscience. His main interest lies in repairing the stroke-damaged brain, foremost by employing neural stem cells, but also more recently using biomaterials. To visualize the repair process, Dr Modo employs non-invasive imaging, such as magnetic resonance imaging. In 2013, Dr Modo received the Bernard Sanberg Memorial Award for Brain Repair by the American Society for Neural Transplantation and Repair.

Dr. Mony received his Ph.D (Haematology) from The University of Nottingham, UK. He received prestigious awards such as Overseas Research Scholarship and Developing Solutions Scholarship (University of Nottingham, UK). He was also a recipient of the British Association of Cancer Research student award during his Ph.D time. He had his postdoctoral training as a senior fellow in a collaborative research programme at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, USA, and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, USA. His expertise and training includes hemato-oncology, tumor microenvironment, preclinical drug discovery (small molecules), pre-clinical mice model development of cancers, and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). He is trained and certified in rodent major surgical procedures from Cornell University, USA, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, USA. He got trained in iPSC generation and differentiation from The University of Queensland and Monash University, Australia.

Dr. Takehiko Mori is an Associate Professor of Division of Hematology at Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Mori graduated from Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan, in 1993. He completed a Postgraduate course of Internal Medicine (Hematology) at Keio University School of Medicine in 1997. Prior to his current roles, he was an Assistant Professor of Division of Hematology at Keio University School of Medicine. Dr Mori’s specialties are hematological disorders and malignancies, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, opportunistic infection and hospital infection control.

Dr. Muench received his doctorate (Ph.D.) in Cell Biology & Genetics from the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He also obtained a B.S. degree in Genetics from the University of California at Davis and an A.S. degree in Physical Sciences from the College of Marin. Currently, Dr. Muench is a Senior Scientist at Blood Systems Research Institute in San Francisco and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Muench has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, review articles and book chapters.

DS Nascimento got her PhD in Zoology by the University of Aberdeen, UK, in 2008. In the same year she became a PostDoc fellow at INEB, where she is an Assistant Investigator from 2015. She has accumulated extensive expertise in the study of the heart in physiological and pathological conditions. Development of efficient therapies to treat heart failure is her long-term goal. She has been appointed member staff of the Bioimaging Centre for Biomaterials and Regenerative Therapies of INEB and she is an Invited Assistant Professor at Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar (ICBAS) of the University of Porto.

Danièle Noël is currently research director in the Inserm Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapies in Montpellier. She received her Ph.D. in Health Biology from the Bordeaux University in 1992. She did a post-doc in the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Montpellier in the field of recombinant retrovirology and gene therapy (1992-1999). She then moved to the Inserm u475 in Montpellier to work in cell therapy and obtained a permanent position in 2007. She became professor in 2011. Her main interests are mesenchymal stem cells and their applications in the treatment of osteo-articular diseases.

Professor Helen C. O’Neill is currently Director of the Clem Jones Research Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Bond University on the Gold Coast in Australia, where she holds a Chair in Immunology and Stem Cell Biology. Previously Professor O’Neill was Head of the Stem Cell and Immunology Laboratory at the Australian National University where she held an academic position for over 30 years. Early in her career she was twice a Visiting Fellow in the Weissman Laboratory at Stanford University. The overall theme of her work is the development of strategies for stem cell-based immunotherapy and regenerative medicine.

Professor, Rei Ogawa has the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. He is currently a faculty member at the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo. He is a fellow of American College of Surgeons. He is now directing the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan. He is also directing Mechanobiology and Mechanotherapy Laboratory at his medical school. He joined the Tissue Engineering and Wound Healing Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, where he worked between 2007 and 2009 as a Research Fellow. He has focused his recent studies on the mechanobiology and its application to tissue engineering, wound healing and anti-aging medicine.

Dr. Rajarshi Pal is currently working as the Chief Scientist, Eyestem Research, a biotechnology start-up incubated at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (CCAMP), NCBS-TIFR Campus, Bangalore. He is also associated with TransDisciplinary University, Bangalore as Visiting Professor. From 2010-2017 he was engaged with the School of Regenerative Medicine, Manipal University as Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator of the ‘Stem Cells in Disease and Development” Group. Previously, he worked in National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi; Reliance Life Sciences, Mumbai and Stempeutics Research, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Pal has published 43 publications in peer-reviewed journals of high international repute; has 5 patents to his credit and has contributed for 7 book chapters.

Dr. Manash Kumar Paul, currently working as Project Scientist at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He has contributed significantly in the field of stem cell biology, regenerative medicine and lung cancer. His research focused on various signaling process involved in maintaining stem cell homeostasis during injury and repair. Recently his group published, first in vitro method for the development of lung organoids mimicking lung from iPSCs. Dr. Paul has published in more than 20 peer reviewed international journals and his work has been highly cited. Dr. Paul is recipient of many awards that include prestigious UCLA Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral award and was nominated for Paul Boyer’s award. Dr. Paul is a member of many scientific societies (ISSCR, AHA, ALA) and editorial member of many international journals.

Dr. Pelacho is Researcher at the Center for Applied Medicine Research (CIMA) and Assistant Professor at the University of Navarra (Spain). She has more than 10 years of experience in research and development of novel therapies aimed to treat cardiovascular diseases. Previously, Dr. Pelacho performed a post-doctoral stay at the University of Minnesota (Stem Cell Institute), developing studies focussed in the application of stem cell therapy for the treatment of myocardial infarction. During her career at the University of Navarra, she obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. Dr. Pelacho has authored more than 40 manuscripts and has obtained several national and international grants as principal investigator.

Dr. Kedong Song is currently Professor in Dalian R&D Centre for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, State Key Lab of Fine Chemicals, Dalian University of Technology. Prof. Song obtained a PhD degree from Dalian University of Technology. He was a Post‐doctoral research associate in Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London from 2008 to 2009. He became a full professor in 2016 at Dalian University of Technology in the areas of 3D tumor models, Stem Cells, Tissue Engineering and Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Prof. Song has published over 100 papers on international journals, and has got citation more than 2,500 times.

Dr. Song is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Chongqing University, China. He received PhD degree from Chongqing University, China, and was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship for Foreign Researchers by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and took the postdoctoral training at Tohoku University and Nagoya University, Japan. Dr. Song’s research interests focus on exploring the mechanisms of stem cell mechanobiology regulated by various mechanical, chemical or coupled mechano-chemical factors. Dr. Song holds several patents and has published more than 100 international peer-reviewed papers, as well as two chapters in books. He also serves as a committee member for Chinese Society of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Yaohui Tang received his Ph.D. degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2014. After graduation, he worked as a postdoc at Max-Planck-Institute for biological cybernetics in Germany and Stanford University in U.S. In 2018 he was recruited as a tenure-track assistant professor in School of Biomedical Engineering, Med-X Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Dr. Tang has a broad interest in stem cell and gene-based therapy for ischemic stroke and tissue engineering. His work has been published on Stroke, JCBFM, AFM, etc, with more than 1000 citations and H-index=16. His work has been supported by national NSFC and SJTU Integration of Medical.

Dr. Liling Tang is the professor of Biomedical engineering at the Chongqing University in China. She was graduated from Chongqing University in 2002. She worked as visiting scholar at University of California at Berkeley, the University of Hong Kong, and University of California at San Diego for several years. Her research focused on Molecular and cellular functions of mesenchymal stem cells and their applications in therapy, alternative splicing of genes in cells responding to signals, and developments of techniques and medicines used in cancer therapy. She has published over 100 articles.

Dr. Marco Tatullo is the Scientific Director of “Tecnologica Research Institute”. Dr. Marco Tatullo is Medicine Doctor (MD) and Doctor in Dental Sciences (DDS) , PhD in “Medical Biochemistry, Medical Biology and Physics” . International collaborator of “Institut de Biologie Paris-Seine” (IBPS) France. Visiting Professor at the University “City Unity College” of Athens and at the “Bithai dental and medical college” in Pakistan. Author of over 70 publications in international journals. Editor in Chief of the book “Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Innovative Biomaterials in Dentistry" published with Springer-Nature. Committee Member for BIODEVICES international conference and past-Chair in T.E.R.M.I.S. symposium.

As a Distinguished Professor and Deputy Dean, Dr Hai-Qiang Wang received his medical training at the Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, where he also earned a PhD degree, studying mechanisms of human intervertebral disc degeneration. Afterwards he completed his fellowship in the University of Hong Kong and Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Australia. As a principal investigator, he obtained 3 projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and 16 patents. He actively contributed to the medical community as Reviewer of 25 journals with highly-cited guest- edited issues and evaluation expert for NSFC, by leading his studying team.

Prof Junjie XIAO is the Director of Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences in Shanghai University and the Vice Dean of School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University. He is the Associate Editor of Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research, Editorial Board of BMC Medicine, and Editorial Board of Cell Transplantation. His major research interest is heart failure, especially using exercise as a platform to identify novel targets for enhancing cardiac regeneration and combating heart failure.

Xu liangliang, Professor at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. He obtained his PhD degree at the department of Orthopaedics & Traumatology of the Chinese university of Hong Kong. He has published more than 48 articles related to stem cells and regenerative medicine (914 citations in total, H index 21) in journals including FASEB J, Stem cell research & therapy, SCI Rep, cell transplantation, Stem Cells Dev, Oncotarget, etc. He has been reviewers of many journals such as Biomaterials, Acta Biomaterialia, Cell proliferation, Oncotarget, Cell death and diseases, etc. And he is an associate board member of Current Proteomics journal.

Chunhui Xu, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Xu has extensive research experience on stem cells and cardiogenesis. Her research is focusing on cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), which hold promise for cardiac cell therapy, disease modeling, drug discovery, and the study of developmental biology. Her group has made significant contribution to the field of pluripotent stem cells. Several of their publications have been identified as a hot paper or among the most highly cited publications in the field of hPSCs. She is an inventor or co-inventor of 16 issued US patents, and her work has been cited more than 7,000 times according to Google Scholar.

John S. Yu is the Medical Director of the Brain Tumor Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He is Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Neurosurgery. He is conducting research in immune and stem cell therapy for brain tumors. He is the founder and director of Immunocellular Therapeutics, a clinical stage public biotech company located in Calabasas, California. He earned his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris studying French literature. He completed his fellowship in immunology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and master's degree from the Harvard University Department of Genetics.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based in Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501(c)(3) biomedical research charity that performs and funds laboratory research dedicated to combating the aging process. He received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Cambridge. His research interests encompass the characterisation of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism (“damage”) that constitute mammalian aging and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage.

Isotta Chimenti is Researcher/Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, and Junior Fellow of the Superior School for Advanced Studies at “La Sapienza” University of Rome. She is MS in Medical Biotechnology and PhD in Experimental Medicine. She has been a postdoc fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Cedars Sinai Heart Institute, and at Pasteur Institute – Italy. Her research activity is focused on cardiac cell therapy and cardiac tissue engineering, adult stem cells, mechano-sensing, and oxidative stress in the cardiovascular system. She is funded as PI by several Italian National grants, and participant in a European Horizon 2020 project. She co-authored 50 Scopus indexed publications.

Dr. Jane Ru Choi received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from University of Malaya, Malaysia in 2016. She is currently a Research Fellow at The University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research interests include cell and molecular biology, stem cell technologies, analytical chemistry, biomaterials and nanomaterials, and the development of microfluidic technologies for environmental monitoring, food safety analysis and a wide range of biomedical applications. Dr. Choi has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, 8 patents. Some of her works have been highlighted in Elsevier’s Summer Chemistry Collection, X-MOL News, Wiley Materials Views and Advanced Science News.

Prof. Ahmed Hashash has completed his PhD from Manchester University, UK. He is a fellow of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and New York University Medical School (MSSM), USA. In 2016, Prof. Hashash joined The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Medical School-Zhejiang International Campus, (ZJU) as Tenure-Track Associate Professor and Senior Principal Investigator of Biomedicine, Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine. He is also adjunct Professor at the School of Basic Medical Science and School of Medicine, Zhejiang University. He has published more than 34 papers in reputed international journals and serves as an editorial board member of several journals of repute. Prof. Hashash has received several international awards and recognitions over the years, including being the nominee for the prestigious One-Thousand talent project prize (Zhejiang, China), and Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science’s (KFAS) Prize in Applied Medical Sciences, and Manchester University Fellowship Award (UK).

Ying-Mei Feng is a Professor at Capital Medical University in Beijing, China. Currently, she is also the deputy director of the Science and Technology Department at Capital Medical University. She received her medical degree from Tian Jin Medical University in China. After three years of residency in Neurology, she went to Belgium to pursue research. She received her Ph.D. degree in Medical Science at Leuven University in Belgium in 2008. Her main research interest is to understand the pathogenesis of vascular complications in diabetes and cardiovascular disease. She has published more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals including Blood, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology and Stem Cells. She has been on the editorial board of Plos One and Current Stem Cell Research & Therapy and served as a guest editor for Stem Cell International and Current Gene Therapy, respectively.

Dr. Neelesh Sharma graduated in Veterinary Science and post-graduated in Veterinary Medicine during the period of 2001 to 2003. Dr. Sharma focused on Stem cell based research in livestock during his Ph.D. from Jeju National University, South Korea; and is currently working as a Senior Assistant Professor in the Division of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Science & Animal Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Jammu, India. He has more than 13 years of experience in teaching, research and extension. He has been working on mastitis in dairy animals and authored a book on “Bovine Mastitis”. He has successfully isolated, characterized and established Korean Holstein cow mammary epithelial/stem cell lines.

Dr. Giovane Tortelote obtained PhD in Developmental and cell Biology. He has a large experience with culture of primary human cells, assays for pluripotency and differentiation of iPS cells. Dr. Tortelote has skills with mice development, kidney physiology and disease modeling. His present occupation is Educations & Scientific Advisor at Strategic cooperate development & Scientific counseling for Medtech and Biotech companies aiming Australia and Latin America. He is also an Assistant Professor of Human Anatomy and Organ Physiology at Celso Lisboa University Center. He is also involved in the development and implementation a new digital platform to improve students’ learning capability.

Dr. Yazhou Wang obtained his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Fourth Military Medical University and got postdoctoral training in the University of California at Davis. He is now an associate professor in the department of Neurobiology of the Fourth Military Medical University in China. His research is mainly on the mechanism of neural stem cell activation and adult neurogenesis. He has published 35 peer reviewed papers and served as reviewers for many journals. He is the one who first raised the concept of “quiescent/active neural stem cells”.

Dr. Yang is a Research Faculty at the City College of New York. He received a B.S. degree in Mathematics from National Taiwan University, a M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University and a Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Before accepting the current faculty position, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The objective of Dr. Yang’s research is to develop innovative engineering technologies in order to create models that help understand the pathophysiology of disease and optimize bioprocessing strategies toward regeneration of human tissues. His research program focuses on stem cell engineering, stem cell aging, biomaterials, drug delivery, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Dr. En-Qiang Chen has graduated from Sichuan University( Chengdu, China) and served as Associate professor in Center of Infectious Diseases, West China Hospital of Sichuan University. He has published more than 50 full peer reviewed publications, 8 book chapters, 15 presentations at international meetings, 2 peer reviewed funded grants and 1 authorized patent. In recent years, he has focused on the basic and clinical research of stem cells in the treatment of liver diseases.

Isotta Chimenti is Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine, and Junior Fellow of the Superior School for Advanced Studies at “La Sapienza” University of Rome. She is eligible as Associate Professor, according to the Italian National Scientific Qualification program. Her education includes a Master of Science in Medical Biotechnology, and a PhD in Experimental Medicine. She has been a postdoc fellow at Johns Hopkins University, at Cedars Sinai Heart Institute, and at Pasteur Institute – Italy. Her research activity is focused on regenerative medicine, in particular on cardiac cell therapy and cardiac tissue engineering, adult stem cells, and oxidative stress in the cardiovascular system. She is funded as PI by several Italian National grants, and participant in a European Horizon 2020 project. She co-authored over 55 Scopus indexed publications.

Ying-Mei Feng is a Professor at Capital Medical University in Beijing, China. Currently, she is also the deputy director of the Science and Technology Department at Capital Medical University. She received her medical degree from Tian Jin Medical University in China. After three years of residency in Neurology, she went to Belgium to pursue research. She received her Ph.D. degree in Medical Science at Leuven University in Belgium in 2008. Her main research interest is to understand the pathogenesis of vascular complications in diabetes and cardiovascular disease. She has published more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals including Blood, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology and Stem Cells. She has been on the editorial board of Plos One and Current Stem Cell Research & Therapy and served as a guest editor for Stem Cell International and Current Gene Therapy, respectively.

Yonggang Lv received the Ph.D. degree in Refrigeration and Cryogenic Engineering with specialty in bioengineering from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, in 2005. He served as a postdoctoral research associate/research fellow at the City College of the City University of New York and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He joined the Bioengineering College at Chongqing University as Full Professor in March 2009 and won the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University, Ministry of Education of China in 2010. He became a senior visiting scholar in Prof. Shu Chien’s laboratory at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) from July to October 2014. He has published over 100 peer referred journal papers, edited 3 books, and holds 9 China patents. His research interests include mechanobiology and regenerative medicine, stem cell biology, and cancer biology. Dr. Lv is the Vice Chairman of hemorheology committee in Chinese Society of Microcirculation. He is an associate editor of Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing and an editorial member of Biotechnology Letters.

Prof Junjie XIAO is the Director of Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences in Shanghai University and the Vice Dean of School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University. He is the Associate Editor of Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research, Editorial Board of BMC Medicine, and Editorial Board of Cell Transplantation. His major research interest is heart failure, especially using exercise as a platform to identify novel targets for enhancing cardiac regeneration and combating heart failure.