Stem Cell and Biobanking

Yusuf Baran is a Professor at Abdullah Gul University, Faculty of Life and Natural Sciences. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in 2002 and 2006, respectively, at Middle East Technical University, Department of Biological Sciences. During his Ph.D. studies, he earned NATO scholarship to work in Medical University of South Carolina of the United States of America, Hollings Cancer Center, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. From June 2007 to 2015, he worked at İzmir Institute of Technology, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. He has been involved in more than 20 national and international research projects. Two of the projects were supported by the European Union Community. He is also an active referee for 35 scientific journals and serving on the Editorial Board of four several academic journals. He is also an active member of many academic and professional institutions including European Hematology Association, European Association for Cancer Research, Turkish Academy of Sciences-Cancer Research Group, Turkish Society of Hematology, Turkish Society of Biochemistry, Society of Molecular Cancer Research, Society of Oncology, Society of Regenerative Medicine and Cellular Therapy, Society of Cell Death Research and Turkish Society of Experimental Hematology (Member of Executive Council). Dr. Yusuf Baran is an Executive Committee Member for The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (Country's main funding body for R&D) since 2011. He is also an Executive Committee Member of Global Young Academy since 2014. He has more than eighty scientific awards. Selected ones are "2014 Outstanding Achievement Award" by Fevzi Akkaya Scientific Activities Support Programme, "Outstanding Young Scientist Award" by Science Heros Association, "Outstanding Labor Scientist Award" by Experimental Hematology Association, “2013 Young Scientist Award” by the World Economic Forum in 2013, “Outstanding Young Person of Turkey in Scientific Leadership”, by International Young Leaders and Enterpreneurs in 2013, “Outstanding Young Scientist Award” by Turkish Academy of Sciences in 2010, “Science Encouragement Award” by Kocaeli University in 2011, and “Cancer Researcher of the Year Award” by Society of Molecular Cancer Research in 2012. In his research, Dr. Baran focuses on molecular biology of cancer, molecular hematology, multidrug resistance mechanisms, reversal of resistance, stem cells and their regenerative potentials, and science and technology policies.

Molecular Biology of Cancer, Genetics of Leukemia, Mechanisms of Multi Drug Resistance, Bioactive Sphingolipids

Professor Diana Anderson completed her PhD in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Manchester, UK. She currently holds the Established Chair in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Bradford. She has published over 450 papers and eight books. She has served on 10 editorial boards, has supervised 30 PhD students and is Editor- in- Chief of the Book Series “Issues in Toxicology” for the Royal Society of Chemistry. She has hosted and participated in 56 meetings for the WHO on Chemical Safety. She has been a Vice President of the Institute of Biology.

Her research interests mainly focus on cancer, oxygen radicals, human bio monitoring, unbalanced precursor pools, dietary imbalance, male-mediated developmental defects, Nano toxicology, and general toxicology.

Davis is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and had his postgraduate medical training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the NIH. His academic positions have included Chair, Department of Medicine, Albany Medical College. He has served as President, American Thyroid Association, as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Internal Medicine and he is Co-Head, Faculty of 1000 – Endocrinology. He serves on multiple Editorial Boards of His scientific interests include molecular mechanisms of actions of nonpeptide hormones, particularly, thyroid hormone. He and his colleagues described the cell surface receptor for thyroid hormone on integrin v3 that underlies the pro-angiogenic activity of the hormone and the proliferative action of the hormone on cancer cells. He has co-authored more than 200 original research articles and 30 textbook chapters and he has edited three medical textbooks.

Paul J. Davis's scientific interests include molecular mechanisms of actions of nonpeptide hormones, particularly, thyroid hormone. He and his colleagues described the cell surface receptor for thyroid hormone on integrin v3 that underlies the pro-angiogenic activity of the hormone and the proliferative action of the hormone on cancer cells.

Drapeau holds a Bachelor’s degree in Honors Neurophysiology and a Master’s degree in Neurology and Neurosurgery from Canada’s McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, with work performed at the Montreal Neurological Institute. His thesis was on epileptogenesis and the role of eicosanoids in long-term potentiation and he completed further scientific training in variable projection microscopy at Bradford Research Institute and in ion-selective microelectrode recordings at St-Anne Hospital in France. Mr. Drapeau has been the Director of Research and Development at Cell Tech International and then Desert Lake Technologies, before co-founding STEM Tech Health Sciences and becoming its Chief Science Officer. He is the author of the Stem Cell Theory of Renewal, detailed in his book cracking the Stem Cell Code.

His interest focuses on basic and clinical research pertaining to adult stem cells, and more specifically the natural role of stem cells in the body and clinical potential of Endogenous Stem Cell Mobilization (ESCM).

Mahendra Rao joins The New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute as the Vice President for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Rao brings decades of experience in stem cell science and business development to NYSCF's mission to translate stem cell research into cures. Dr. Rao was the Director of the NIH Center for Regenerative Medicine since its founding in 2010. Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Rao spent six years as the vice president of Regenerative Medicine at Life Technologies, Inc.

He has over twenty years of experience in all aspects of the stem cell field including government, academia, and business.

James Sherley, graduated from Harvard College (1980) and completed joint M.D./Ph.D. Degrees at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (1988). After post-doctoral studies at Princeton University, beginning in 1991 he started the cancer cell molecular biology research at Fox Chase Cancer Center. In 1998, he began adult stem cell research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2007 continued at Boston Biomedical Research Institute. In 2013, he founded the Adult Stem Cell Technology Center, LLC, (ASCTC), which he currently directs. ASCTC is developing technologies for mass-producing human tissue stem cells for applications in drug development and transplantation medicine. Honors & Awards 2006 NIH Director's Pioneer Award 2003 Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging Research 1993 Pew Scholar Award in the Biomedical Sciences.

Adult stem cells, adult stem cell expansion, adult stem cell-specific biomarkers, adult stem cell quantification, induced pluripotent stem cell production efficiency, cancer, aging, drug development, immortal DNA strands, non-random segregation, H2A.Z, epigenomics, epigenetics.

Haval Shirwan is Dr. Michael and Joan Hamilton Endowed Chair in Autoimmune Disease, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Director of Molecular Immunomodulation Program at the Institute for Cellular Therapeutics. He conducted his Graduate studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara, CA, and Postdoctoral studies at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. He joined the University of Louisville in 1998 after holding academic appointments at various academic institutions in the United States. He is member of several national and international societies and recipient of various awards.

His research focuses on the modulation of immune system for the treatment of immune-based diseases with particular focus on type 1 diabetes, transplantation, and development of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines against cancer and infectious diseases. He is an inventor on over a dozen of worldwide patents, widely published, organized and lectured at numerous national/international conferences, served on study sections for various federal and non-profit funding agencies, and is on the Editorial Board of a dozen of scientific journals.

Mary Mehrnoosh EshaghianWilner received a BS degree in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering 1985 MS degree in Computer Engineering 1985 Engineers degree in Electrical Engineering 1988 and PhD in Computer Engineering 1988 all from the University of Southern California USC. Dr Eshaghian Wilner is currently an Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California Los Angeles UCLA. She is also a patent attorney admitted to the State Bar of California and the Washington DC Bar and is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Mary Mehrnoosh Eshaghian-Wilner is best known for her pioneering contributions to three areas of Optical Computing, Heterogeneous Computing, and Nano scale computing. In the area of Optical Computing, she produced one of the first theses that dealt with the computational aspects of optical interconnects for VLSI chips.

Gergana Dobreva did her PhD at the Gene Center, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany, followed by a postdoc at the Gene Center and the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg in the group of Prof. Rudolf Grosschedl. Her work during this period focused on the function of nuclear matrix attachment regions (MARs) and MAR-binding proteins in gene regulation. In 2006 she joined the group of Prof. Laugwitz at the Technical University, Munich as a postdoctoral fellow, working on the role of the LIM-domain transcription factor Isl1 during heart development. Since 2008 she is an Independent Scientific Research Group Leader, funded by the Emmy No ether Award from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Cell biology, developmental biology, heart development, stem cells, epigenetics.

James E. Trosko, Ph.D., Professor of Pediatrics/Human Development, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University. Dr. Trosko is the Director of the Human Genetics, Cancer and Stem Cell Division. After doing pioneering research in DNA repair & cancer-prone human syndromes at Oak Ridge National Lab, he was a recipient of a Natl. Cancer Institute- Career Development Award to the McArdle Lab for Cancer Research at the U. of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Trosko, together with his colleague, Dr. Chia-Cheng Chang, was the first to develop an in vitro assay to detect tumor promoters and epigenetic toxicants. His laboratory was the first to have isolated adult human stem cells and demonstrate that they were the target cells for cancer. He was appointed Chief of Research at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation-Hiroshima, Japan (1990-92). He was the recipient the Society of Toxicology’s first “Scientific Achievement” award, as well as a recipient of the MSU Teacher Scholar and MSU-Distinguished faculty awards, as well as a MSU Sigma Xi Senior Scientist awardee. He received the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science award; the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology “Brain Pool” Award. Seoul National University awarded him a “World Class University Professorship”. His recent research involves the role of human adult stem cells in the “Barker hypothesis” and the diseases of aging.

Human Genetics,Cancer and Stem Cell,DNA repair & cancer-prone human syndromes.