Informazioni su EuroStemCell

Centre for Stem Cell Biology, University of Sheffield

Prof. Andrews is Co-Director of the Centre for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Sheffield and leader of its Stem Cells and Cancer research group. The appearance of genetically abnormal cells aising from pluripotent stem cells in culture offers a unique model to study the initiation and progression of cancer cells. These models will allow the identification of critical genes which are responsible for the cancer-like properties of cells and may lead to novel strategies and therapies for treatment.

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.

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.

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.

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 until 2011 focusing his research on signal transduction mechanisms in human and murine embryonic stem cells.

Since 2012 he is managing director of the German Stem Cell Network (GSCN). The GSCN is fostering national and international scientific communications, as well as developing outreach programs for schools and the general public in Germany.

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.

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

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.

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.

Center for Regenerative Medicine University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

Professor De Luca, and his principal collaborator Graziella Pellegrini, have been involved in epithelial stem cell biology aimed at clinical application in regenerative medicine for over 20 years. Beside his work on the use of human epidermal stem cell cultures in life-saving treatment of massive full-thickness burns and in repigmentation of stable vitiligo and piebaldism, he established human limbal stem cell culture aimed at corneal regeneration in patients with severe limbal stem cell deficiency. This treatment leads to recovery of vision in patients with poor alternative options for therapy. Michele De Luca is currently coordinating the first (successful) ex-vivo epithelial stem cell-mediated gene therapy clinical trial for the gene therapy of junctional epidermolysis bullosa, a serious genetic skin disease. He is also studying molecular mechanisms regulating self-renewal, proliferative potential and clonal evolution of epithelial stem cells.

Read an interview with Michele De Luca.