Speaker List:
Madeline Andrews
Dr. Andrews' lab utilizes neural organoids, transplantation models and omics approaches to study human brain development and disease.
Floris Barthel
The Barthel lab studies the role of telomere dysfunction in brain cancer (glioma) development and evolution.
David Brafman
Dr. Brafman is a stem cell biologist with expertise in high-throughput screening, biomaterials, and regenerative medicine
Benjamin Bartelle
Dr Bartelle’s lab assays the diverse molecular signaling of whole living animals, using probes, reporters, and sensors derived from synthetic biology.
Albert Cheng
The Cheng lab develops technologies based on artificial DNA and RNA binding proteins and applies them to sense or induce sequence or epigenetic changes at target genomic loci or target transcripts.
Audrey Lapinaite
The Lapinaite lab is working to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the functional role of RNA-protein interactions and post-transcriptional RNA processing in neurons in normal and pathological states.
Miyeko Mana
Honing in on the intersection of stem cells, diet and cancer, Dr. Mana's research focuses on how various diets, ranging from high-fat to calorie restriction, impact stem cells and create vulnerabilities that can lead to transformations that result in tumor initiation
Mehdi Nikkhah
Dr. Nikkah’s laboratory is currently focused on the integration of innovative biomaterial and microscale technologies to create biomimetic model tissue constructs for regenerative medicine and disease modeling applications.
faculty.engineering.asu.edu/nikkhah/person/dr-mehdi-nikkhah/
Christopher Plaisier
The Plaisier lab uses omics-level snapshots of complex biological systems to inform computational models that explore the state space of biological systems, discover mechanistic interactions driving the changes in biological states (e.g. health and disease), and predict interventions that push the system from disease states towards healthy states.
plaisierlab.engineering.asu.edu
Doug Shepherd
The Shepherd lab is an optical biophysics group, broadly interested in developing methods to study, understand, and predict how cells make decisions during development.
Sarah Stabenfeldt
The Stabenfeldt laboratory focuses on engineering novel targeted diagnostic and therapeutic (‘theranostic’) biomaterials for neural injury/disease, and identifying endogenous neural stem cell homing mechanisms after injury and incorporating such biosignals into tissue-engineered matrices.
stabenfeldt.engineering.asu.edu
Jason Steel
Dr. Steel is the Director of the KE Biosciences Core and has research experience in identifying and characterizing novel photoreceptor specific genes and cloning and characterization of peroxisomal membrane proteins.
Ramon Velazquez
Dr. Velazquez’s research interests include identifying novel therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Down Syndrome (DS). In particular, he focuses on early molecular events that trigger the progression of these diseases. He is also interested in drug discovery and dietary supplementation of B-like vitamins as a method to prevent disease progression.
biodesign.asu.edu/ramon-velazquez
Kuei-chun (Mark) Wang
Dr. Wang’s research is at the interface of engineering and medicine. He uses an integrated approach to study how biophysical factors regulate vascular functions and develops targeted nanotherapeutics for cardiovascular diseases.
Neal Woodbury
Neal Woodbury is Vice President for Research and Chief Science and Technology Officer for ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise. In this capacity, he advances ASU’s research, economic development, international development and corporate engagement and strategic partnership agendas, as well as oversees activities related to KE operations, institutes and initiatives.
Keynotes
Dr. Maksim Plikus
University of California, Irvine
Dr. Maksim Plikusis a professor at UC Irvine who studies the mechanisms of regeneration and stem cell control, examining how complex tissues and organs regenerate under normal conditions and in response to injury or disease.His group is working to understand two important areas: firstly, the nature of stem cell regulatory networks, which his lab is investigating using the model of hair regeneration.Using a mathematical approach, Dr. Plikus’ group showed how important signaling pathways from the stem cell micro-environment become reused to mediate long-range communication between neighboring hair stem cell clusters. Secondly, his lab is working to understand regenerative behavior in response to organ injury. His work has demonstrated that the regenerative abilities of adult mammalian skin are far greater than previously thought, and that cells in the center of large skin wounds can acquire an embryonic-like state and develop new, fully functioning hair follicles.With this regeneration model, his lab is studying the mechanisms that allow adult cell reprogramming in response to injury, and how this can be exploited to achieve scarless healing of adult tissues. Dr.Plikus is a distiguished scientist, consistently publishing his research in top tier journals, and was awarded the LEO Foundation award in 2019, the American Association of Anatomists young investigator award in 2018 and is a Pew Biomedical scholar, 2016.
Dr. Kelly Stevens
University of Washington
Dr. Kelly Stevens is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, and Laboratory Medicine & Pathology at the University of Washington. Dr. Stevens' research team focuses building artificial human tissues. To do this, her team is developing molecular and cellular “blueprints” of human tissues, as well as new advanced fabrication and cellular methods for tissue construction. Dr. Stevens has received numerous honors and awards, such as selection to The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine New Voices cohort and receipt of the NIH New Innovator Award, BMES CMBE Rising Star Award, John Tietze Stem Cell Scientist Award, and Gree Foundation Scholar Award. More importantly, Dr. Stevens has sought to integrate social transformation fluidly throughout our scientific platforms. Dr. Stevens works to disseminate the message that to engineer medical advances that equitably improve the lives of all people, our profession must first include all people–diversifying our profession is the requisite engine of innovation and creativity needed to bring us into the 21st century.
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