About EuroStemCell

Usher Institute for Population Health Sciences and Informatics

Sarah Chan is a recently-appointed Chancellor’s Fellow at the Usher Institute for Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh. She was educated at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she completed degrees in biological science and in law, and spent a number of years as a researcher in a molecular biology laboratory before moving to work in the area of science policy and stem cell ethics. In 2005 Sarah took up a Research Fellowship in Bioethics and Law at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester, where she also completed a MA in Health Care Ethics and Law and a PhD in Bioethics. From 2009 to 2015 she was Deputy Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation, University of Manchester. Her research interests and publications cover areas including the ethics of gene therapy and genetic information, enhancement, research ethics, stem cells, animal ethics, transhumanism, and the ethics of science and innovation.

Leiden University Medical Centre

Christine Mummery is Professor and chair of Developmental Biology at Leiden University Medical Centre. She pioneered studies on cardiomyocytes from human embryonic stem cells and was among the first to inject them in mouse heart after myocardial infarction Present interests are on using stem cell derived cardiomyocytes and vascular cells as disease models, for drug discovery.  In 2007, she was a joint Harvard Stem Cell Institute/Radcliffe fellow.  

She presently serves on several Ethical Councils, Scientific Advisory and Editorial Boards and has written a popular book on stem cells. She is also on the board of ISSCR, president of the International Society of Differentiation and an elected  member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Science.

Read our interview with Christine Mummery: A physicist's take on stem cell biology.

Petr Dvorak is Professor in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Genetics Department of Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University.

Professor Andrew Webster has been Professor in the Sociology of Science and Technology at York since 1999. He is also the Director of the Science and Technology Studies Unit at York which he established originally at Anglia Ruskin University in 1988. He has held a visiting fellowships at ANU, Sydney and Gothenburg universities.

He was Head of the Department of Sociology at York between 2004-9 and then Dean of Social Sciences and member of the University's Senior Management Group until 2013.He has directed national research programmes for the ESRC and MRC in the fields of emerging health technologies and stem cells, and held major grants from UK research councils and the European Commission.

He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Science in 2007.

Andrew serves on a number of editorial and scientific advisory boards as well as national policy committees including the UK Stem Cell Bank Steering Committee, the Regenerative Medicine Expert Group Sub-committee, and the Scientific Advisory Committee, Pharmacy Research UK, as well as member of various UK and international academic bodies including, the BSA, EASST, and the Dutch WTMC's International Scientific Board.

Institute of Reconstrutive Neurobiology, University of Bonn Medical Center

Life & Brain

Oliver Brüstle is a neuropathologist and a renowned expert in stem cell research. Following research activities at the University of Zurich and the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, he now serves as Professor of Reconstructive Neurobiology at the University of Bonn Medical Center.

Giuseppe Testa is head of the stem cell epigenetics unit at the European Institute of Oncology. He is also Deputy Principal Investigator in the Research Unit on Biomedical Humanities. He is the cofounder of the interdisciplinary PhD program FOLSATEC (Foundations of the Life Sciences and Their Ethical Consequences) in Milan.

Born in Stockholm in 1957, Urban Lendahl studied biology at Stockholm University from 1978-1982, specializing in molecular biology. After earning his PhD at the Karolinska Institute in 1987 (with Professor Lars Wieslander as advisor), Lendahl was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT 1987-1989 with Professor Ron McKay as mentor. After returning to the Karolinska Institute, Lendahl became Professor of Genetics in 1997. Lendahl is a member of the Nobel Assembly for Physiology or Medicine since 2001, and was during 2012 Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Lendahl’s research is focused on developmental biology, stem cells and intracellular signaling pathways, notably the Notch signaling pathway.

Lendahl has served as head of the review committee at the Human Frontiers Science Foundation, and serves at evaluation committees at the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Cancer Society. Lendahl is currently director of three research centers in stem cell research and regenerative medicine: DBRM (www.dbrm.se), StratRegen and WIRM (the Wallenberg Institute for Regenerative Medicine). Lendahl holds since 2010 a Distinguished Professor Award at the Karolinska Institute, is Editor-in-Chief for the journal Experimental Cell Research and is a Member of the Board of Trustees for the Koerber European Science Award.

Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Milan

Professor Elena Cattaneo is Director of the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Department of Pharmacological Sciences, as well as a co-founder and first appointed Director of UniStem, the Centre for Stem Cell Research of the University of Milano. The main research theme of her lab is neural stem cells, and the molecular pathophysiology of Huntington’s Disease.

Funders of Prof Cattaneo's lab include the Huntington's Disease Society of America (H.D.S.A.), Hereditary Disease Foundation,High Q Foundation, the European Union (through EuroStemCell, NeuroStemcell, ESTOOLS, NeuroNE, STEM-HD and Stem-stroke projects), Fondazione Cariplo, and Telethon Italy.

Prof Cattaneo is a Coalition Investigator of the Huntington's Disease Society of America (H.D.S.A.), and a member of the Board of Directors of several European consortia (including EuroStemCell and NeuroNE). She acts as a reviewer for several journals (including Science, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Genetics, and Journal of Neuroscience) and international funding agencies, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hereditary Disease Foundation and of the Euro-HD Network.

Prof Cattaneo's studies on neural stem cells and Huntington's disease saw her awarded the “Le Scienze” Price for Medicine and a Gold Medal from the President of the Italian Republic in 2001. In 2005 she was awarded the Marisa Bellisario and Chiara D’Onofrio prizes, in 2006 was nominated Cavaliere Ufficiale (Knight) of the Italian Republic, and in 2013 was appointed senator for life by Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano. She was also named Stem Cell Person of the Year in 2013 by Paul Knoepfler and the readers of his blog, and awarded the ISSCR Public Service Award in 2014, with Paolo Bianco and Michele De Luca, for "their recent involvement in public debate and policy-making in Italy, championing rigorous scientific and medical standards and stringent regulatory oversight in the introduction of new stem cell treatments into the clinic."

Prof Cattaneo has published 105 papers in peer-reviewed journals, has given more than 200 invited lectures, and is very active in organizing professional development and outreach events - for both the scientific community and lay public.

Philip Newsome is Professor of Experimental Hepatology and Clinical Director of the Birmingham University Stem Cell Centre. He is an Area Lead (Liver Regeneration) in the NIHR Birmingham Liver Biomedical Research Unit.

Philip has published over major research papers in scientific journals as well as reviews and book chapters in the fields of stem cell biology and liver disease. He has received major grants from NIHR, European Union, Wellcome Trust, UKSCF, BBSRC and the Medical Research Council.

He is an enthusiastic communicator on the theme of translational stem cell work and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and gives frequent talks to various groups at both the local and national level. Philip frequently contributes to both the local and national media and continues to advise the BBC on stem cell-related stories.

Fiona Watt obtained her DPhil from the University of Oxford, and carried out postdoctoral research at M.I.T, Cambridge, USA. She established her first lab at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London, and then moved to London Research Institute. From 2006 to 2012 she was Deputy Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute and Deputy Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, University of Cambridge. She is currently Director of the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, Kings College London. My major research interest is in the role of stem cells in adult tissue maintenance.

Hans Clevers is Principal Investigator at the Hubrecht Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research (KNAW) and the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology and also Professor of Molecular Genetics at the UMC Utrecht and Utrecht University, and Oncode Investigator.

Clevers discovered how the Wnt signaling pathway dictates cell fate decisions during animal embryogenesis by controlling gene expression. Looking beyond embryogenesis, he unveiled the role of Wnt signaling in colon cancer and in its physiological counterpart, the self-renewing gut epithelium. Combining these insights, he described the generic stem cell marker gene Lgr5, which has identified multiple novel adult stem cell types. Against prevailing views, these stem cells could be expanded indefinitely as organoids: mini-organs that recapitulate healthy or diseased human tissue in a dish. Organoids are rapidly gaining ground as research tools in a wide range of scientific disciplines including basic developmental and cell biology, infectiology, toxicology and research on hereditary diseases and cancer.

Stem Cells Australia

A/Prof Megan Munsie combines her extensive technical expertise with an interest and understanding of the complex ethical, social and regulatory issues associated with stem cell science. Megan heads the Education, Ethics, Law & Community Awareness Unit at the Australian Government funded Stem Cells Australia initiative. Megan is a member of an international research team that is exploring community expectation in relation to stem cell science, and in particular ‘stem cell tourism’. Over the last decade, Megan has contributed to the development of relevant policy in Australia and co-authored educational resources for the public and health professionals. In addition to having worked for over fifteen years in the Australian stem cell field, Megan also has more than ten years experience as an embryologist in IVF clinics around Australia.

Megan has a Bachelor of Applied Science from QUT, a Masters in Reproductive Sciences and a PhD from Monash University. It was during her PhD in 2000, in which she was the first person to demonstrate that stem cells could be made from ‘cloned' mouse embryos, that Megan saw the real need for scientists to engage with regulators and the public.

Wendy Bickmore is Director of the MRC Human Genetics Unit, part of the MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.  After an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Oxford, she obtained her PhD at Edinburgh University.  During postdoctoral training, she became fascinated by the structure and organization of chromosomes in the nucleus and as an independent fellow of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine (1991-1996) she went on to show that different human chromosomes have preferred positions in the nucleus, related to their gene content. As an MRC group leader she then investigated how individual genes are organized and packaged in the nucleus and how they move in the cell cycle and during development. Current research in Wendy Bickmore’s laboratory focuses on how the spatial organization of the nucleus influences genome function in development and disease. Wendy is an EMBO member and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Academy of Medical Sciences. She is an editor on many journals including PLoS Genetics and Cell and is the President-Elect of the Genetics Society.