The Stem Cell Podcast

Dr. Margaret "Peggy" Goodell is the Vivian L. Smith Chair in Regenerative Medicine and Director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center at Baylor College of Medicine. Her research focuses on HSC regulation and aging. She talks about her discovery of a side population of HSCs, as well as her work on DNMT3A mutation and clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential. Finally, she discusses the rich research environment in Houston.

Drs. Sarah Teichmann is a Member of the Department of Medicine and Professor of Stem Cell Medicine at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute.  She talks about the plasticity of different cell types and developing whole-organ cell atlases for organs such as the thymus. She also discusses Human Cell Atlas project and overcoming skepticism in its early days. Finally, she talks about integrating computational and wet lab biology, and running an interdisciplinary research group.

Professor Hank Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor, by courtesy, of Genetics at Stanford University. He is also the Director of the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences. He talks about his career path into bioethics and ethical considerations for organoids, bodyoids, and embryo models. He also discusses the potential future of reproduction, including gametogenesis, ectogenesis, and genetic selection and editing of embryos.

Dr. Scott Younger is the Director of Disease Gene Engineering within the Genomic Medicine Center at Children's Mercy Hospital. His research focuses on producing patient-derived cellular models to develop functional precision medicine. He talks about using personalized antisense oligonucleotides to reverse disease phenotypes in organoid models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He also discusses his lab's personal connections to the rare disease community and the opportunities for collaborations with clinicians at Children's Mercy.

Dr. Valentina Greco is the President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), and Professor of Genetics and Co-Chair of the Status of Women in Medicine at Yale University. Dr. Kathryn Cheah is an ISSCR Program Committee Co-Chair and Emeritus Professor and Chair of Biochemistry at Hong Kong University. Dr. Eugenia Piddini is also an ISSCR Program Committee Co-Chair and Professorial Research Fellow in Cell Biology and School Research Director at the University of Bristol. They talk about the upcoming ISSCR 2025 meeting in Hong Kong from June 11-14, 2025. They discuss the meeting's global focus, program highlights, opportunities for early-career researchers, and what they're looking forward to in Hong Kong.

Dr. Robert Zweigerdt is a Principal Investigator at Hannover Medical School, where his lab focuses on cardiac differentiation and the scalable culture of PSCs. He talks about regulating the lineage-specific differentiation of hPSCs and generating heart-forming organoids that mirror developmental cardiogenesis. He also discusses the importance of mentorship and the benefits of an international research group.

Dr. Giorgia Quadrato is Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on brain developmental and neural organoids. She talks about protocols for generating cerebellar organoids, including those with functional Purkinje cells. She also discusses a transcriptomic atlas of neural organoids and the stem cell research landscape in California.

Drs. Andrew Elefanty and Elizabeth Ng are Senior Principal Investigator and Principal Investigator, respectively, at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. In the Blood Development group, they aim to develop innovative cellular therapies for blood and  cartilage-related diseases. They talk about their recent study deriving and transplanting HSCs, their work on reporter lines, and their collaborative lab setup.

Dr. Marius Wernig is a Professor of Pathology and a Co-Director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University, where his research interests include direct reprogramming and neurological disease modeling. He talks about his early work reprogramming neuronal cells from fibroblasts, adopting iPSCs, and growing his lab. He also discusses his recent research on cell therapy for brain and skin diseases, as well as his musical talents outside of the lab.

Guest: Dr. Jonathan Thomas "JT" is the President and CEO of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), an organization that provides funding for stem cell research with the purpose of accelerating treatments for patients in need. He talks about working to ensure diversity in clinical trials and developing treatments that are affordable and accessible to patients. He also discusses the progress during the twenty years since CIRM's inception, training the next generation of scientists, and balancing support for basic and clinical research. (41:03) Featured Products and Resources: Register now for ISSCR 2025 in Hong Kong! Cell Quality Attributes of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells The Stem Cell Science Round Up Regulating Naive Pluripotency – Scientists used a targeted rapid protein degradation system to show that GABPA is a master pluripotency regulator. (1:36) Skin Wound Healing – A spatiotemporal atlas of human skin wound tissues identifies FOSL1 as a critical driver of re-epithelialization. (11:50) Bone Marrow Stem Cell Niches – The bone marrow niche orchestrates hierarchy in stem cells and immune tolerance. (20:49) Synthetic Organizer Cells – Synthetic organizer cells self-assemble around stem cells and produce morphogens. (30:50) Image courtesy of Dr. Jonathan Thomas Subscribe to our newsletter! Never miss updates about new episodes. Subscribe

Dr. Milica Radisic is a Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto. Her lab uses organ-on-a-chip engineering to mimic physiology of the heart, kidney, and vasculature for the purpose of modeling human disease and discovering more effective drugs. In this episode, she talks about the challenges of studying the heart and strategies to mature cardiomyocytes. She also discusses using macrophages to vascularize heart-on-a-chip platforms and enhance cardiac tissue function, sustainability considerations for microfluidic chips, and how these disease models can reduce the use of lab animals. Finally, she talks about starting a company to commercialize her lab's cardiac chip platform, the landscape for women entrepreneurs, and advice from her mentor, Dr. Bob Langer.

Dr. Cynthia "Cindy" Dunbar is National Institutes of Health (NIH) Distinguished Investigator and Chief of the Translational Stem Cell Biology Branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH. She talks about using macaques to study hematopoiesis and aging, and the challenges and considerations for using these models. She also discusses her collaborative study transplanting iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes into rhesus macaques, as well as the NIH's unique research environment and her musical talents outside of the lab.

Dr. Mansi Srivastava is Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Her lab uses distantly related species to study evolution and regeneration. She talks about establishing Hofstenia miamia, or the three-banded panther worm, as a model system. She also discusses her lab's work on adult stem cell lineage tracing and whole-body regeneration in Hofstenia, as well as her scientific outreach efforts.

Drs. Dina Radenkovic and Bruna Paulsen are Co-Founder & CEO and VP of Manufacturing and Therapeutic development at Gameto, a biotech company developing treatment solutions to improve women's reproductive health. Their lead platform, Fertilo, uses ovarian support cells to mature oocytes outside of the body with the goal of making IVF and egg freezing shorter, safer, and more effective.

Dr. Meritxell Huch is a Scientific Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and an Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Dresden. Her research focuses on liver and pancreas organoid models.  She discusses a protocol for liver mesenchyme and ductal cell organoid co-culture and generating bipotent stem cells from the liver. She also tells her story of moving throughout Europe to pursue her scientific passions.

Dr. Samantha Morris is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Associate Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. She talks about dissecting and manipulating the genetic pathways that regulate cell identity. She discusses tools to measure cell fate transitions and incorporating in silico and in vitro experiments.

Dr. Alfonso Martinez Arias is the CREA Research Professor in the Department of Systems Bioengineering of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He talks about his path to developmental biology research and developing gastruloids to model human development. He also discusses standards for embryo models and his recent research on hematopoiesis.

Dr. Behzad Yeganeh is an Associate Scientist at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and the University of Ottawa. His work focuses on lung development and injury. He talks about neonatal lung diseases and the mechanisms that regulate autophagy and apoptosis.

Dr. Dmitriy Sheyn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopedics and Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His lab focuses on the development of stem cell therapies for multiple musculoskeletal disorders caused by acute injuries and aging. He talks about ways to model disc degeneration and tendon injuries. He also discuses his lab's work on tendon differentiation and the mechanisms of low back pain.

Dr. Ludovic Vallier is the W3 Einstein Strategic Professor for Stem Cells in Regenerative Therapies at the Berlin Institute of Health and a Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics. His lab uses stem cells to model embryonic development in vitro and to produce liver cells with an interest for cell therapy. He talks about modeling non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and his lab's pivot to SARS-CoV-2 research early in the pandemic. He also discusses how iPSCs could be used to regenerate the liver after injury.