At this year’s California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Trainee Networking Conference, the young scientists assembled heard it loud and clear: this is the time, and California is the place for regenerative medicine.
“You’re in the golden era of biomedical innovation,” said CIRM President and CEO Jonathan “JT” Thomas.
More than 400 students and postdoctoral fellows gathered at USC for the three‑day CIRM conference. They came from CIRM’s Bridges, COMPASS, and Scholars programs. The conference featured 85 speakers and 44 moderators and panelists, giving attendees strong opportunities to learn, network, and build careers.
USC Stem Cell organized the event with funding from a CIRM conference grant. ThermoFisher Scientific and Amgen provided additional sponsorship. Along with the students, representatives from CIRM, ISSCR, the National Marrow Donor Program, Cedars‑Sinai, Stanford, and USC attended.
Carolyn Meltzer, MD, a CIRM board member and Dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, offered the opening remarks. Event organizers Francesca Mariani, PhD, and Louise Menendez, PhD, welcomed attendees next.
Patient Advocates Highlight Importance of Science
During the conference, three patient advocates shared their stories and highlighted how scientific advances can affect patients’ lives. Jake Javier described his spinal cord injury, his participation in a Lineage Therapeutics clinical trial using embryonic stem cells, and his hope to help others facing sudden injury.
Kristin Macdonald discussed her experience with Retinitis Pigmentosa and her involvement in a stem cell therapy trial led by Henry Klassen of UC Irvine and jCyte.
Kim Cade, Director of Sister’s Hope Foundation, spoke about advocating for her siblings, who have a rare brain disorder called ALSP, which causes symptoms similar to ALS.
Speeches from Top Scientists
Attendees heard keynote talks from leading scientists. Justin Ichida, PhD, an associate professor at USC and VP for Neuroscience Research at BioMarin, discussed his work on developing new ALS therapies. Aileen Anderson, PhD, director of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at UC Irvine, presented research on using human neural stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries.
Don Kohn, MD, a distinguished professor at UCLA, shared his success using gene therapy with blood stem cells to cure more than 50 babies with ADA‑SCID, also known as bubble baby disease. Other presenters included Kenneth Kosik, MD, of UC Santa Barbara; Ritchie Ho, PhD, of Cedars‑Sinai; Paula Cannon, PhD, of USC; and Bryce Carey, PhD, of Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
The conference offered mini‑breakout sessions on organ systems, early embryonic development, cell therapy, organoids, immunotherapy, genomics, gene editing, and other research topics.
Wei Yan, MD, PhD, an editor at eLife, gave a thoughtful talk about how scientific publishing has evolved. He also described challenges in the current system and ways to improve it.
Opportunities for Professional Development
Students and postdoctoral fellows presented their research through short talks, including Sushma Kalmodia from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), Marcella Birtele from USC, Sydney Prange from UC Irvine, Franco Felix from Stanford University, Robert Lu from UC Berkeley, and Zahir Shah from City of Hope. The conference featured 76 trainee speakers and over 250 poster presentations, with three prizes for the best presentations.
A career panel with a live Q&A session was offered to trainees wanting to know more about career development opportunities. The panel featured professionals in various biotech careers, spanning from research to policy, communication, outreach, education, and patient advocacy. Breakout sessions included topics like applying to graduate school and finding biotech industry positions, as well as networking sessions.
CIRM’s Impact on Display
In the final keynote, Robert Klein II, chief author of the ballot propositions that funded CIRM, left the audience with this message:
“When you ask, ‘What am I doing? Who am I?’ you realize you are in the right place at the right time to make historic change and reduce suffering.”
Watch this video recap of the CIRM Trainee Networking Conference, and to learn more about our science education and work training programs, visit cirm.ca.gov/education.
