Ep. 291: “Functional Precision Medicine” Featuring Dr. Scott Younger
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.
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1:25:08
Ep. 290: “ISSCR 2025: Illuminating the Future” Featuring Drs. Valentina Greco, Kathryn Cheah, and Eugenia Piddini
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.
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1:22:20
Ep. 289: “Heart-Forming Organoids” Featuring Dr. Robert Zweigerdt
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.
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1:26:43
Ep. 288: “Cerebellar Organoids” Featuring Dr. Giorgia Quadrato
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.
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1:22:28
Ep. 287: “Blood Development” Featuring Drs. Andrew Elefanty and Elizabeth Ng
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.