Leading stem cell scientists to discuss on stem cell clinical trials for ALS and heart attack patients

World's leading stem cell scientists debate and discuss latest clinical trials using stem cells to treat ALS and heart attack patients

WHAT: The first Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Scientific Symposium, dedicated to furthering our ability to bring stem cell therapies from the laboratory to the patient bedside. The conference, led by Clive Svendsen, Ph.D., and Eduardo Marb-n, M.D., Ph.D., will highlight the most recent developments in leading-edge stem cell research and treatments for brain and heart diseases.

WHO: Svendsen is director of the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute and is working on a stem cell clinical trial for ALS patients in which doctors will inject stem cells releasing powerful therapeutic molecules into patients' spinal cords. Marb-n is director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and leading a groundbreaking clinical trial in which a patient's own heart tissue is used to grow specialized heart stem cells. The stem cells are then injected back into the patient's heart in an effort to repair and re-grow healthy muscle in a heart that has been injured by a heart attack.

International guest faculty include some of today's most prominent stem cell scientists:

• Sir Ian Wilmut, OBE, FRS, FRSE, director, Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, England. He is best known as a key member of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a lamb named Dolly.
• James Thomson, VMD, Ph.D., director of regenerative biology at the Morgridge Institute for Research, University of Wisconsin. Thomson is widely credited with discovering human embryonic stem cells in 1998, and then the remarkable induced human pluripotent stem cells that can now be generated from adult skin cells.
• Oliver Brustle, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Reconstructive Biology, University of Bonn. Brustle was one of the first scientists in the world to successfully transplant embryonic stem cells into the brains of young mice that then produced functional neurons.
• Fred Gage, Ph.D., Salk Institute, La Jolla, Calif. Gage was the first scientist to show that humans are capable of growing new nerve cells in certain parts of the brain throughout life. He is recognized as a world leader in this emerging field of generating new neurons within the adult brain - or neurogenesis.
• Stefanie Dimmeler, M.D., Ph.D., Institute of Cardiovascular Regeneration, Goethe-University, Frankfurt. Dimmeler is known for her work in elucidating the mechanisms of angiogenic and cardiogenic effects of stem cells, laying the basis for multiple clinical trials of cell therapies for regenerating injured hearts.
• Christine Mummery, Ph.D., Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. Mummery is well-known for investigating the necessary and sufficient conditions for functional benefit after transplanting stem cells into the heart.

WHEN: Monday, June 14, 2010. Registration opens at 8 a.m.; program begins at 9 a.m.

WHERE: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Harvey Morse Auditorium, 8700 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90048