Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Dr. Linzhao Cheng is a Professor of Medicine and Oncology, and a founding member of Stem Cell Program in the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM). He is also the Associate Director for Basic Research in the Division of Hematology, and Lucas and Lynn Chair in Hematology in JHUSOM. He received his BS degree from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1985, and his PhD degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from JHUSOM in 1991. Since then, he has been working on stem cell research in NIH, two biotech companies (Systemix Inc. in Palo Alto, CA; Osiris Therapeutics in Baltimore, MD) and JHUSOM (since 1999). He was a recipient of USA Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2003). In 2012, Dr. Cheng was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS). As an overseas Chinese, he received an award in 2004 from China’s NSFC to promote international collaborations. Dr. Cheng serves as an editorial Board of Directors for several professional journals including Cell Research (China), Stem Cells (USA), Regenerative Medicine (UK), Frontier of Medicine (China), Science China-Life Sciences. He served as a member of the International Affairs Committee for the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) from 2005 to 2013, and served frequently as a reviewer/adviser for granting agencies worldwide. He is currently a member in the advisory and review panel for the national priority initiative on stem cells and regenerative medicine in China. In addition, Dr. Cheng is the current President of Chinese Stem Cell Foundation, a non-profit and non-political professional organization registered in CA, USA. In December 2016, he was elected as President (2018-2019) of the Hematology Division affiliated with the Society of Chinese Biologists in America (SCBA). He also serves as a member in scientific advisory boards of several biotech companies.
Dr. Cheng’s recent work has been on human cell engineering by cellular fate reprogramming (such as iPSC derivation and uses) and genome editing. His current research is focusing on using human stem cells for human biology and engineering including cell and gene therapies, especially for the blood and vascular systems. See details of his scientific publications (>100 papers peer reviewed; cited for >20,000 times with an H-index = 58) in: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=73kyBr0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao http://www.stemcelllab.org http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hematology
Professor, University of California Los Angeles
Dr. Guoping Fan is currently a full Professor in the Department of Human Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He obtained his BS in Biochemistry from Nanjing University in China, and PhD in Neuroscieneces at Case Western Reserve University in the US. After a postdoc at Whitehead Institute/MIT, he took the faculty position at UCLA in 2001. Dr. Fan’s research focuses on understanding genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that are involved in stem cell differentiation, neural development, and human diseases. By studying conditional knockout mice that lack one of the DNA methyltransferases (Dnmt1, Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b), his lab begins to understand the function of DNA methylation in brain development and function. Dr. Fan and his staff also establish human induced pluripotent stem cells to understand the pathogenic mechanisms of human diseases including Fragile X Syndrome and ICF Syndrome. More recently, his team is applying genomic technology to understand the fundamental question in stem cell biology and neuroscience. Dr. Fan has published a lot of original papers in the prestigious international journals including Science, Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, and Development. Among the many professional activities, Dr. Fan has served as grant reviewer for National Institute of Health, Maryland Stem Cell Research Program, and Connecticut State Stem Cell Program.
Director, Yale Stem Cell Center
Professor of Cell Biology, of Genetics, and of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, Founding Director of Yale Stem Cell Center, and Founding Dean (Adjunct) of School of Life Science and Technology at ShanghaiTech University. Dr. Lin’s work is focused on the self-renewing mechanism of stem cells, using Drosophila germline stem cells, mouse germline and embryonic stem cells, human embryonic stem cells, and Hydra stem cells as models. He also studies germline development and stem cell-related cancers.
Dr. Lin received his BS degree from Fudan University (1982), and his Ph.D. degree from Cornell University (1990). Following his postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, he joined the faculty of Duke University Medical School in 1994, where he rose to the rank of Full Professor. He founded and directed the Duke Stem Cell Research Program (2005-2006), and moved to Yale in 2006 to establish and direct the Yale Stem Cell Center.
Dr. Lin has made key contributions to the demonstration of stem cell asymmetric division, the proof of the stem cell niche theory. He discovered the Argonuate/Piwi gene family and their essential function in stem cell self-renewal and germline development. He is also a discoverer of a novel class of non-coding small RNAs called PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), which was hailed by the Science Magazine as one of the Ten Scientific Breakthroughs in 2006. More recently, he proposed and demonstrated the crucial roles of the Piwi-piRNA pathway in epigenetic programming and in posttranscriptional regulation of mRNA and lncRNA.
Dr. Lin has provided numerous services to the scientific community and beyond. He served on 18 advisory committees for research/academic institutions, non-for-profit foundations, and societies in the past. His current service includes Treasurer and Member of Executive committee of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR; 2013-), Board of Directors of the ISSCR (2009-), Chairman of the ISSCR Finance Committee (2013-), Member of the ISSCR Nomination Committee (2013-), the Medical Advisory Board of New York Stem Cell Foundation (2009-), Co-founder and Core Member of the Connecticut State Government Life Sciences Advisory Group (2011-), Advisory Committees of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2008-), National Key Stem Cell Research Programs Strategic Planning Committee of Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (2010-), Councilor of Shantou University (2010-), Visiting Chair Professor of Tsinghua University (2002-), and Advisor of the World Wenzhounese Association (2009-). Dr. Lin currently also serves on the Editorial Boards of Cell Stem Cells (2007-), StemBook (2007-), Journal of Cell Biology (2009-), Current Opinion in Cell Biology (2009-), Cell Research (2010-), National Science Review (2013-), Science China (2013-), and Stem Cell Reports (2013-).
Dr. Lin received many awards and honors, including the Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship for Medical Research (1990), American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award (1996), the March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Scholar Research Award (1996), the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering (1996), Member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (2007-), the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Award (2007, 2011, 2015), the American Society of Andrology Lecturer Award (2008), the Laura Hartenbaum Breast Cancer Foundation’s Legacy for Hope Award (2009), the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award (2010), the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (2010), the NIH MERIT Award (2012), the Ray Wu Award (2013), and the Society for the Study of Reproduction Research Award (2015). He is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2010- present).
Founder of AllCells
Dr. Jay Tong founded and managed AllCells, a world leading provider of human primary hematopoietic & Immunological cells and services to the Cell and Gene Therapy communities from 1998 through July, 2022 without any external capital support. AllCells was fully owned by Jay and his family. AllCells is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area in Alameda, CA and has divisions in Boston and Houston Areas, and there are 120 full-time employees. AllCells was successfully acquired by Discovery Life Sciences, Inc. in July, 2022 with all cashes of several hundred million USD.
Jay had been focusing on hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) purifications from tissues of bone marrow, cord blood and mobilized peripheral blood, HSC ex vivo expansion, HSC gene transduction, HSC clinical transplantations, etc. during my 15+ years scientific research careers before starting up AllCells. He has extensive knowledge of the biological features and clinical applications of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC) from tissues of bone marrow, cord blood, placenta, adipose, etc. He also understands Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC) and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC). He had hands on experience on purifications, identifications, cultures and cryopreservation of all types of immunological cells such as T cells, B cells, NK cells, Monocytes, Dendritic Cells, etc. He have been paying highly attentions to stem cell gene therapy, anticancer cell therapy such as CAR-T or CAR-NK, and CRISPR gene editing technologies, etc.
CEO of HebeCell
Shi-Jiang (John) Lu, PhD, MPH, is currently the President and CEO of HebeCell Corporation, focusing on the development and clinical translation of regenerative medicine and cell therapy technologies, especially iPS-CAR-NK cells for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune and viral infectious diseases. Before establishing HebeCell, he was the Senior Director of Research at Advanced Cell Technology/Ocata Therapeutics, which was acquired by Astellas Pharma in 2016. John is an expert in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine with 20 years of experiences. He has been conducting translational research and discovery of novel therapeutic strategies utilizing human pluripotent stem cells (PSC) and their derivatives. The goal of his research is to generate human PSC-derived products for the treatment of human diseases. He also has extensive experience in process development and large-scale production of human PSC derivatives under defined conditions for clinical trials. John is the inventor of more than 20 patents in stem cell field: in an analysis of global stem cell patent landscape by Nature Biotechnology in 2014, John’s patent application and citation ranked No. 7 and No. 5, respectively. In addition to stem cell research, Dr. Lu also has more than 10 years of experiences in cancer research. John received his BS degree in Biochemistry from Wuhan University, MSc degree in Oncology/Pathophysiology from Peking Union Medical College, MPH degree in Molecular Toxicology/Environmental Sciences from Columbia University and PhD degree in Molecular Cancer Biology from University of Toronto.
Boya Chair Professor, Peking University
Hongkui Deng, is a Boya Chair Professor and Senior Investigator of the Center for Life Sciences at Peking University. He is also Department Chair of Cell Biology at School of Basic Medical Sciences of Peking University Health Science Center. Since 2013, he has been the director of the Peking University Stem Cell Research Center. Professor Deng’s research focuses on somatic cell reprogramming and lineage specific differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. In 2013, his lab developed a chemical reprogramming strategy to induce pluripotent stem cells from somatic cell types using only small molecules. This breakthrough has opened new avenues for manipulating cellular states or identities via chemical reprogramming, and his lab has recently applied this chemical approach in promoting tissue regeneration in vivo.
Co-founder and CSO of Zephyrm Biotechnologies
Alex Zhang, PhD, is the co-founder and CSO of Zephyrm Biotechnologies, a start-up company that is dedicated to the development of pluripotent stem cell derived therapeutic products. Prior to starting Zephyrm, Alex was the Head of China R&D and Chief Scientific Officer of Asia-Pacific R&D Hub of Sanofi, where he oversaw R&D activities across the AP region. He is also a professor of neurobiology at Capital Medical University (Beijing), where he leads various research projects in the field of regenerative medicine. Alex holds a BS from University of Science and Technology of China and earned his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. His postdoctoral training was at Stanford University.
Professor, Weill Cornell Medicine
Dr. Shuibing Chen is the Kilts Family Professor and Vice Chair of Innovation in the Department of Surgery and Director of Center for Genomic Health at Weill Cornell Medicine. She received my B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Tsinghua University in China. Then, she pursued my PhD under the advisement of Dr. Peter G. Schultz at the Scripps Research Institute. After graduation, she joined Dr. Doug Melton’s laboratory at Harvard University. The major research interest in the Chen Laboratory focuses on human pluripotent stem cell-derived organoids for disease modeling and drug screening. One major focus of the lab is to study pancreatic beta cell dysfunction in type 1 and 2 diabetes. They used CRISPR-based gene editing approach to precisely knock out genes or knock-in single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The disease modeling platform will be adapted to high throughput format to perform drug discovery and identify gene/allele-specific drugs. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Chen created a panel of hPSC-derived cells/organoids to study SARS-CoV-2 infection. Part of these work has been published on Nature, Cell Stem Cells, Cell Metabolism, Circulation Research, etc. She has received many awards including New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator, American Diabetes Association (ADA) Innovative Award, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, and ISSCR Dr. Susan Lim Award for Outstanding Young Investigator, etc.
Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill
Dr. Li Qian received her undergraduate degree in biology from Fudan University in China and a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She then pursued postdoctoral training in cardiovascular and stem cell biology at Gladstone Institute, UCSF. Currently as a Professor, and the Associate Director of McAllister Heart Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Qian is exploring how to alter cardiac cell fate for the development of new therapeutic strategies to treat heart disease. In addition, Qian Lab (https://uncliqian.web.unc.edu/) takes advantage of traditional mouse genetics, cell and molecular assays, biochemistry and the latest single cell omics technologies to investigate the fundamental events underlying cardiomyocyte differentiation/programming and trans-differentiation/reprogramming. Dr. Qian’s contributions to the field of cardiovascular research and regenerative medicine have been recognized by many honors and awards, including the recent Emerging Investigator Award from NHLBI and Established Investigator Award from American Heart Association. Qian is also a passionate teacher and mentor who has received UNC’s “Outstanding Mentor Award” and “Faculty Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring”.
Associate Professor, Karolinska Institutet
Hong Qian PhD., is currently an associate professor, principal investigator funded by a Senior Investigator Award from the Swedish Cancer Society (Cancerfonden) for the research group Leukemia niche at the Center for hematology and Regenerative Medicine (HERM) at Karolinska Institutet.
Dr Qian is a stem cell biologist by training. She received her Ph.D. degree in Stem Cell Biology from Lund University, Sweden (2007). She had her postdoc training at Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, Sweden (2008-2011).
She was recruited to HERM at KI as an independent professor to lead an independent research group in 2012. Since then, she and her group have been focusing on hematopoietic microenvironment/niche, particularly, mesenchymal stem cells in normal hematopoiesis and leukemia using both mouse models and patient materials (https://ki.se/en/medh/hong-qian-group-leukemia-niche). The recent work from her group has demonstrated the role of bone marrow microenvironment in the progression and therapy response of acute myeloid leukemia and chronic myeloid leukemia.
Founder and CEO of ALSTEM
Dr. Gary Li received his PhD degree from Nanjing University, China in 2000. In 2002, Dr. Li received the research grant from Muscular Dystrophy Association to support his research on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at SUNY-Albany. In 2006, Dr. Li received the fellowship from California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to support his research on stem cell and neuroscience at Gladstone Institute, UCSF. Dr. Li’s research covers stem cell, neurosciences, chemistry and biochemistry. He published more than twenty research articles in high profile journals, as well as two US patents. In 2008, he received the Katheryn Grupe Award from the Alzheimer’s Association for his outstanding contribution to the field of Alzheimer’s research. In late 2011, Dr. Li founded ALSTEM, and provides stem cell related products and services to the research community. Meanwhile, Dr. Li is a joint faculty of Bioengineering Department at Santa Clara University. Now Dr. Li serves as an executive member of Chinese Stem Cell Foundation.
Professor, Jinan University
Dr. Gong Chen graduated from Fudan University in 1987 and obtained his PhD degree at Shanghai Institute of Physiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Chen did postdoctoral work first at Yale and then at Stanford University, before joining the faculty of Pennsylvania State University in 2002. Dr. Chen is now a Professor and Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences at Penn State. Dr. Chen pioneered an innovative in vivo cell conversion technology for brain and spinal cord repair. Dr. Chen and his team make use of brain internal glial cells that normally surround neurons to regenerate new neurons in situ. Dr. Chen discovered that expressing a single neural transcription factor NeuroD1 in glial cells can directly convert them into functional neurons. This revolutionary work has been published in Cell Stem Cell (Guo et al., BEST of 2014 articles). Because glial cells are residential cells throughout the brain and spinal cord, Dr. Chen’s technology opens a new field that can essentially treat a wide range of neurological disorders, including traumatic brain injury such as concussion and bullet wound, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, ALS, and etc. Dr. Chen and colleagues further developed a chemical conversion technology, using small molecules to convert human glial cells into functional neurons (Zhang et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2015), paving the way for a potential drug therapy to regenerate new neurons inside brains. Chen’s breakthrough findings have been widely reported in the news media, kindling new hope for millions of patients around the world. To translate his new technology from bench to the bedside, Dr. Chen and team members have filed a series of patent applications. Dr. Chen is a founder of NeuExcell Therapeutics Inc., a company aiming to lead a revolution in brain and spinal cord repair by transforming his cutting-edge technologies into therapeutic treatments to save millions of lives. Professor Chen is a member of many professional societies, including the American Society for Neuroscience, the American Neurological Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the International Society for Stem Cell Research. He has been honored by the Alzheimer’s Association with Zenith Fellows Award. Chen has published scientific papers in high-impact journals such as Cell Stem Cell, Nature Communications, Nature, Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Neuroscience, and Human Molecular Genetics. His research has been funded by U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, Alzheimer’s Association, and most recently U.S. Army Medical Research Program. Chen has presented invited talks and keynote speeches at many international conferences and leading institutions. Dr. Chen organized and Chaired the first symposium in history on in vivo cell conversion in the CNS at the 2014 annual meeting of Society for Neuroscience in Washington DC. This symposium is a milestone marking a new field of in vivo cell conversion in regenerative medicine.