Cell Symposia: Using Stem Cells to Model and Treat Human Disease

The Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine 2012 was awarded to Shinya Yamanaka and John Gurdon for their discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. Their work has now galvanized the stem cell field into generating patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and use these to model and treat human disease. While these efforts are still in their infancy, other stem cell populations are closer to the clinic, and some of them are moving through clinical trials. The overall goal of the symposium is to bring these two areas of stem cell research together to accelerate progress in the field.