Hallmarks of Immortality: Defining the Properties of Normal and Cancer-initiating Stem Cells

Speakers

John E. Dick, PhD

University of Toronto
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John Dick is the Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology and director of the Program in Stem Cell Biology at Toronto General Research Institute at the University of Toronto. The long term objectives of his research program are to understand the organization and developmental program of human hematopoietic stem cells, and to characterize how expression of key regulatory genes leads to leukemic transformation. His lab has developed novel in vivo assays for normal human hematopoietic stem cells by transplantation of normal human bone marrow into immune deficient mice. In addition to normal cells, they have established an animal model of human leukemia that is analogous to the progression of the disease in humans. These advances lay the foundation for a novel approach to create animal models of many human diseases providing a unique alternative to transgenic mice. They have also developed a system to genetically manipulate the human hematopoietic cells with retrovirus vectors expressing human growth regulatory genes and oncogenes. This will enable the researchers to mark stem cells to follow their lineage development as well as to express a variety of growth regulatory genes to determine their role in the stem cell developmental program.

Michael F. Clarke, MD, PhD

Stanford University
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Michael Clarke is the associate director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. In addition to his clinical duties in the Division of Oncology, Clarke maintains a laboratory focused on two areas of research: i) the control of self-renewal of normal stem cells and their malignant counterparts; and ii) the identification and characterization of cancer stem cells. A central issue in stem cell biology is to understand the mechanisms that regulate self-renewal of hematopoietic stem cells, which are required for hematopoiesis to persist for the lifetime of the animal. Until recently, the molecular mechanisms that regulate adult stem cell self-renewal were not known. His laboratory recently found that the proto-oncogene Bmi-1 regulates stem cell self-renewal via an epigenetic mechanism. By investigating the pathways upstream and downstream of Bmi1, the laboratory is actively investigating the molecular pathways that regulate self-renewal.

Clarke received his MD from Indiana University in 1977.

Erica L. Herzog, MD

Yale University School of Medicine
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Erica Herzog is an assistant professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. Following medical school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, she completed residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where she received the Ira M. Goldstein Award for resident teaching. Herzog combined postgraduate training in pulmonary and critical care medicine with PhD training in investigative medicine at Yale University, completing both programs with distinction in 2005. She pursued her PhD in the laboratory of Diane Krause where she studied the role of heterokaryon formation in the development of bone marrow derived epithelial cells. She has received multiple honors and awards including the Parker B. Francis Fellowship in Pulmonary Medicine (2004), an NIH mentored clinical scientist research award (2005) and the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr, Scholar Award (2006). Herzog has a clinical interest in pulmonary fibrosis and an active research program focusing on novel approaches to overcoming failure of epithelial proliferation and repair mechanisms in the injured mammalian lung.

David T. Scadden, MD

Harvard Medical School
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David Scadden is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Hematological Malignancies and the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also codirector of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University. The focus of his laboratory is stem cell biology, with a particular interest in the regulation of the cell cycle within the stem cell compartment. Scadden's lab has identified differentiation stage-specific roles for cyclin dependent kinase inhibitors. In addition, Scadden is interested in the microenvironmental niche as a physiologic regulator of stem cell behavior. In his lab, each of these is addressed with a particular emphasis on how they might be targeted to human health.

Scadden received his MD from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1980.

Angelo DePalma

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Angelo DePalma is a freelance science writer living in Newton, New Jersey.