Day 2 :
Keynote Forum
Michael D West
AgeX Therapeutics, USA
Keynote: Induced Tissue Regeneration (iTR): Leveraging the Unique Regenerative Potential of Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Therapeutics
Time : 09:00-09:30
Biography:
Dr. West is Co-Chief Executive Officer of BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX) and CEO of BioTime’s subsidiary AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. BioTime is focused on developing an array of research and therapeutic products using pluripotent stem cell technology. He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 concentrating on the biology of cellular aging. He was the founder and first CEO of Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, California (Nasdaq: GERN), held positions as CEO, President, and Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., which was acquired by Astellas Pharma, Inc., and founded Asterias Biotherapeutics (NYSE MKT: AST).
Abstract:
Human pluripotent stem cell lines display the potential to cascade through all primary germ layers and hence, all human somatic cell types. This pluripotency has led to the prospect of using working cell banks of pluripotent cells to generate previously rare and valuable cell types on an industrial scale. The striking capacity of of pluripotent stem cells to form organoids in vitro, a property not typically seen in adult-derived cells, may reflect the unique regenerative potential of somatic cells before undergoing the embryonic-fetal transition (EFT). The demonstration that pre-EFT embryonic progenitors can be robustly clonally expanded is leading to a facile comparison of the transcriptomes of embryonic/regenerative cells and their adult counterparts. The identification of markers of EFT such as COX7A1 expression, opens the door to the deliniation of the molecular pathways regulating the biology of EFT with potentially profound implications for novel quality control assays useful in the manufacture of pluripotent cell-derived therapeutics, but perhaps more importantly, methods for inducing tissue regeneration in vivo, as well as new insights into cancer biology. Examples of the utility of this biology in the context of the manufacture of embryonic brown adipocyte and vascular progenitors, as well as well as in modulating iTR for therapeutic effects in age-related degenerative disease and cancer will be discussed.
Keynote Forum
Mark Berman
University of Southern California, USA
Keynote: Autologous Adipose Stromal Vascular Fraction – Lessons from 7 Years of Clinical Experience
Time : 9:30-10:00
Biography:
Mark practices cosmetic surgery and stem cell surgery in Beverly Hills. Together with Elliot Lander, they co-founded the California Stem Cell Treatment Center and then the Cell Surgical Network. He was the 2010 President of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery. His pioneering work in facial rejuvenation with autologous fat transfers led him into the arena of adipose stem cell investigations based upon a multidisciplinary approach to patient care.
Abstract:
Since 2010, I’ve been involved with investigative deployment of autologous adipose stromal vascular fraction (SVF) and more recently, autologous expanded mesenchymal cells (MSCs). During this time Elliot Lander, MD and I have established an international network (Cell Surgical Network) that teaches physician affiliates a simple surgical procedure to harvest adipose tissue and produce filtered SVF. No surgical procedure is “closed” however, the process is very safe, fairly simple, and outcomes analysis has been very satisfactory. Our clinical investigations have not only shed light on potential uses, we have increased our understanding of how cells can be most effective and where there have been some disconnects between the laboratory evaluation and the actual treatment of patients. We have also learned lessons about what drugs do and how our autologous stem cells are fundamentally different from drugs, in spite of the current FDA regulations. I will present information about our published safety paper, current data, and some unique areas of research in concussion, paralysis and unique deployment methods for some neurologoical diseases.
Keynote Forum
Esma S Yolcu
University of Louisville, USA
Keynote: Engineering bone marrow cells with an immunomodulatory protein for the prevention of graft-vs-host disease
Time : 10:00-10:30
Biography:
Esma S. Yolcu is Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and the Director of Imaging Facility at the Institute for Cellular Therapeutics and member of James Brown Cancer Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. Dr. Yolcu received her Ph.D. degree from University of Ankara, Ankara, Turkey and joined the University Of Louisville School Of Medicine in Louisville, KY, to pursue her postdoctoral training. Dr. Yolcus research focuses on novel immunomodulatory approaches for the induction of tolerance to auto and alloantigens for the purpose of treating rejection and autoimmunty. Dr. Yolcu is the recipient of several awards, member of various national and international societies, serves on Editorial Board of scientific journals, and published over 67 peer-reviewed papers, abstracts, and review articles in high ranking journals, such as Immunity, Circulation, Blood, and the Journal of Immunology.
Abstract:
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic autoimmune disease that impacts millions of people world-wide. Presently, there is no cure for T1D and treatment with exogenous insulin to manage diabetes is ineffective in controlling euglycemia in a substantial population of type 1 diabetics. Transplantation of pancreatic islets as a source of beta cells producing insulin has proven effective in improving metabolic control in type 1 diabetic individuals. However, graft rejection is a major limitation of clinical islet transplantation that is controlled by chronic immunosuppression. Systemic use of immunosuppression is associated with various adverse effects that compromises the life quality of graft recipients. We have been pursuing the development of targeted and localized immunomodulatory approaches as a safe and effective alternative to chronic immunosuppression. In particular, we developed biomaterials based on polyethylene glycol microparticles engineered with immunomodulatory ligands targeting islet destructive pathogenic T effector cells for physical elimination within the graft microenvironment. The application of this novel concept to the induction of tolerance to islet allografts as a cure for T1D will be discussed.
Keynote Forum
Khalid Shah
Harvard Medical School, USA
Keynote: Receptor targeted engineered stem cells: Therapeutic application for cancer and beyond
Time : 10:30-11:00
Biography:
Khalid Shah is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics and Imaging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). He is also the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Neurosurgery at BWH and a Principal Faculty at Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston. Since his move to BWH, he has started a joint Center of Excellence in Biomedicine with KACST and is also directing the new Center. He and his team have pioneered major developments in the stem cell therapy field, successfully developing experimental models to understand basic cancer biology and therapeutic stem cells for cancer, particularly brain tumors. These studies have been published in many high impact journals like Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, Nature Reviews Cancer, JNCI, Stem Cells and Lancet Oncology. Recently, his work has caught the attention in the public domain and as such it has been highlighted in the media world-wide including features on BBC and CNN. He holds current positions on numerous councils, advisory and Editorial Boards in the fields of stem cell therapy and oncology. In an effort to translate the exciting therapies developed in his laboratory into clinics, he has recently founded biotech company, AMASA Technologies Inc. whose main objective is the clinical translation of therapeutic stem cells in cancer patients.
Abstract:
Stem cell-based therapies are emerging as a promising strategy to tackle different disease types. We have identified different cell surface receptors on both tumor cells and tumor cell associated endothelial cells and engineered stem cells express bi-specific therapeutic agents that target these receptor types. Using our recently established invasive, recurrent and resection models of primary brain tumors (GBM) and breast and melanoma metastatic tumors in the brain that mimic clinical settings, we show that engineered human mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells expressing novel bi-functional proteins or loaded with oncolytic viruses target both the primary and the invasive tumor deposits and have profound anti-tumor effects. These studies demonstrate the strength of utilizing engineered stem cell based receptor targeted therapeutics for developing cancer therapeutics and have implications for developing innovative therapies for different diseases.
Keynote Forum
Magnus S Magnusson
University of Iceland, Iceland
Keynote: T-patterns and temporal and spatial self-similarity across many orders of maginitude: From proteins and neurons to only big-brain mass societies
Time : 11:20-11:50
Biography:
Magnus S. Magnusson, Research Professor, founder and director of the Human Behavior Laboratory University of Iceland. PhD in 1983, University of Copenhagen. Author of the T-pattern model and detection software THEMETM (PatternVision.com), focused on real-time organization of behavior. Co-directed DNA analysis. Numerous papers (>1700 citations) and talks/keynotes in ethology, neuroscience, mathematics, religion, proteomics and mass spectrometry. Deputy Director 1983-1988, in National Museum of Natural History, Paris. Repeatedly invited temporary Professor at the University of Paris, V, VIII and XIII. Since 1995, in collaboration between now 32 universities initiated at the University of Paris V, Sorbonne, based on “Magnusson’s analytical model”.
Abstract:
This talk may be seen as a message between areas with boundaries increasingly blurred. The ongoing work was initially inspired by the animal and human ethological (biology of behavior) research of Nico Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frish for which they shared a Nobel Prize in 1973, and by E. O. Wilson’s research on insect societies. The focus, however, soon turned to defining and detecting recurrent behavioral patterns exploiting the increasing computational possibilities given adequate pattern models and software. Developing both became the major task since the late 1970´s resulting around 1980 in a pattern type, named T-pattern and corresponding detection algorithms implemented as THEMETM (hbl.hi.is, patternvision.com). T-patterns are multicategorial, hierarchical and self-similar, recurring on a single dimension with statistically significant translational symmetry now abundantly detected in human and animal behavior and interactions (Casrrubea et al., comprehensive review 2015, Neuroscience Methods). When later applied to the neurons in neuronal netwroks in rats’ olfactory lobes (Nicol et al 2015), numerous complex T-patterns were found. Self-similarity of temporal patterning thus appeared on very different levels of biological organization. Consequently, the spatial structure of DNA and proteins has been explored suggesting much (striking) T-pattern organization. T-pattern related self-similarity over many orders of magnitude in biological spatial and dynamic structure thus seems to exist. It, moreover, seems to include striking self-similarity from Cell Cities (protein cities) to the only big-brain (i.e. human) mass-societies, critically based on evolving, durable and massively copied T-patterned strings of, respectively, molecular and alphabetic units, external to the citizens.