Über EuroStemCell

German Stem Cell Network

Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine

Daniel Besser studied biology at the Freie Universität Berlin and obtained his diploma in 1990. He received his PhD in 1996 from the university of Basel with a thesis from the Friedrich-Miescher-Institute, Basel on signal transduction in the gene regulation of urokinase-type plasminogen activator. He worked at Rockefeller University, New York until 2004 in the laboratories of Hidesaburo Hanafusa and James E. Darnell on Stat3 signaling and the function of c-Src; and from 2002 on pluripotency in embryonic stem cells in the lab of Ali H. Brivanlou.

He has been leader of a research group at the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin for the last 8 years focusing his research on signal transduction mechanisms in human and murine embryonic stem cells.

He is currently coordinating an initiative to establish a network for stem cell research in Germany. In addition to fostering national and international scientific communications, the network will also develop outreach programs for schools and the general public in Germany.

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.

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.

Danish stem cell centre

HumEn stem cell research consortium

Henrik Semb is Managing Director of Danstem and Professor of Human Stem Cell Biology. He uses an integrated and multi-disciplinary approach to his research which focuses on pancreas development and disease using a combination of developmental biology and stem cell research. He is the project co-ordinator of the EU funded HumEn project, which aims to up-scale the generation of insulin producing beta cells for the treatment of diabetes.

Read an interview with Henrik Semb.

Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Sweden

Göran Hermerén has been Professor of Medical Ethics at the Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Sweden, since 1991. He has also held the position of Professor of Philosophy, Lund University, since 1975 and he was Professor of Philosophy of Science and Humanities, Umeå University from 1970-75. He is co-ordinator of the EU-funded research project Europriorities and is involved in several other EU-funded projects. He has published and edited books on research ethics as well as papers on ethical problems (mainly medical ethics) in international periodicals. Current research and teaching interests include ethical aspects of gene testing and stem cell research.

Cardiff University

Repair-HD

Professor Anne Rosser heads the South Wales clinical neurology service for HD as consultant neurologist. She chairs the UK HD research network and the UK arm of the European HD Network, and serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the global project Enroll-HD. As a scientist, Professor Rosser co-directs the Brain Repair Group in the Cardiff University School of Biosciences with particular responsibility for neural stem cell studies, and is the clinical director of the Cardiff Foetal Tissue Bank.

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.

Centre for Genomic Regulation, Barcelona

Thomas Graf is Coordinator of the Differentiation and Cancer Programme at the Center for Genomic Regulation and an ICREA professor in Barcelona, Spain. His lab is interested in the role of transcription factors in hematopoiesis and leukemia, and how these regulators can induce trans-differentiation. Is blood cell differentiation a strictly hierarchical process or does more than one pathway exist for the formation of a given cell type? More specifically, how does a single transcription factor, C/EBPa, reprogram B-lymphocytes to become functional macrophages? During this process, what epigenetic changes are required to turn thousands of genes off and on, making a 'cell within a cell'? What are the common principles during induced transdifferentiation? Answering some of these questions will enhance our understanding of the connection between differentiation and cancer. They will also help designing new protocols for the controlled reprogramming of differentiated cells that might be useful for cell replacement therapies.



Read an interview with Thomas Graf by Monya Baker of Nature Stem Cell Reports (requires subscription): Cellular Identity and Transdifferentiation

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.

Paolo De Coppi is a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), and Reader and Head of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at the UCL Institute of Child Health in London.

He has been an Honorary Professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, since 2013, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, since 2009 and an Honorary Assistant Professor in Paediatric Surgery at the University of Padua, Italy, since 2005. He co-ordinates the EU Horizon2020 funded stem cell research consortium - INTENS which aims to aims to make a functional reconstructed bowel for people with Short Bowel Syndrome.

University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology

Department of Cytology

Maria A. Ciemerych is a developmental and cell biologist focusing on mammalian development, stem cells, and regenerative medicine. She completed her MSc and PhD at the Department of Embryology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, studying the initial stages and cell cycle regulation during preimplantation mammalian development. She continued to analyse early mouse embryo during her pre- and postdoctoral trainings at Manchester University, Welcome/CRC - University of Cambridge and Jacques Monod Institute - University Paris 7. Finally she moved for 3 years to Dana Farber Cancer Institute – Harvard Medical School, where she was focusing on cell cycle regulation not only in mouse embryos but also in stem cells. After her return to Warsaw, she got involved in the studies on skeletal muscle regeneration and myogenic differentiation of various stem cells, including embryonic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells. In 2006 she became a head of the Department of Cytology, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw.  For the last 4 years she has served as a dean for research at the Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw. Being a scientist, she also actively popularises science during various outreach activities.