Dr. Goldstein's work is supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and the Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation. His laboratory has discovered important links between transport processes and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases. He is now focused on using human stem cells to understand and treat Alzheimer’s disease, Niemann-Pick Type C and ALS. Goldstein served as Co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the campaign for the Proposition 71 stem cell research initiative, which authorized $3 billion in tax-free state bonds to fund stem cell research in California over 10 years. As a Co-founder of Cytokinetics, he has also had an active role in private industry, where he has gained experience in translating scientific insights to new therapeutic approaches. Goldstein received his B.A. in Biology and Genetics from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Washington.

 

Kevin D’Amour, Ph.D., VP, Research & Chief Scientific Officer, ViaCyte

Dr. D’Amour is an expert in stem cell science, an inventor of ViaCyte’s key patents and a co-author of high profile publications in renowned scientific journals. In addition to leading research advances in the stem cell program, D’Amour is frequently called upon to address the biological aspects of ViaCyte’s technology platform with regulating bodies, such as the U.S. patent office and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Prior to joining ViaCyte, D’Amour performed pre-doctoral research with Dr. Fred Gage at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies where he studied stem cell plasticity in neural stem cells. His past experience also includes a research position at Gen-Probe. D’Amour performed undergraduate studies at the University of New Hampshire and earned his Ph.D. in Biology at UC San Diego.

Robert Henry, M.D., Professor of Medicine‚ UC San Diego; Chief, Section of Endocrinology, Metabolism & Diabetes, VA San Diego Healthcare System

Dr. Henry is Past President of the American Diabetes Association Medicine and Science. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the American Diabetes Association, the Department of Veterans Affairs and several pharmaceutical grants. He is a member of several organizations and has received numerous awards. Henry has published more than 400 journal articles and chapters. His current clinical research interests involve the study of novel therapies for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Henry received his M.D. from the University of Manitoba Medical School in Manitoba, Canada and completed his residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Endocrinology.

Martin Marsala, M.D., Professor, Anesthesiology, UC San Diego

Dr. Marsala has been involved in the development and characterization of several spinal and brain ischemia and trauma models using rodents and mini pigs over the past 20 years. In the course of these studies, his laboratory has characterized the behavioral, electrophysiological and histopathological changes in the spinal cord and brain of animals after transient ischemia or trauma, and developed a well-defined scientific base for the initiation of cell replacement-based therapies to modulate spinal-injury-induced motor dysfunction and muscle spasticity. Additionally, he and his team have successfully generated porcine iPS and fetal brain/spinal cord-derived neural precursor lines, demonstrating long-term survival after in vivo grafting in naïve immune-deficient rats or immunosuppressed mini pigs. Part of this data has been used in the IND application by Neuralstem and subsequently served to establish a clinical protocol for treatment of ALS patients. Marsala has published over 133 peer-reviewed articles.

Joseph Ciacci, M.D., Clinical Professor of Surgery, UC San Diego; Chief of Neurosurgery, VA San Diego Healthcare System

Dr. Ciacci is the Program Director of the UC San Diego Neurosurgery Residency and an Academic Community Director at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Ciacci has directed many surgeon-to-surgeon training courses and labs worldwide. His spinal cord injury research has resulted in many publications on stem cells and spinal cord injury that have been sited and presented internationally, as well as being featured on the cover of the Journal of Neurotrauma and in multi-media news reports worldwide. Ciacci is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) on a “first in human” clinical study of neural stem cell transplantation in chronic spinal cord injury.

Thomas Kipps, M.D., Ph.D., Deputy Director for Research, Moores UC San Diego Cancer Center

Dr. Kipps is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego and the Evelyn and Edwin Tasch Chair in Cancer Research at Moores Cancer Center. He has more than 25 years of experience in combining basic/translational research and clinical investigation in leukemia, in particular chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and more recently cancer stem cells. He is a two time National Institutes of Health (NIH) Merit Scholar, recipient of the Binet/Rai medal for contributions in CLL research, author of over 300 peer-reviewed publications, a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) grant awardee for his work on ROR1 and cancer stem cells and Director of the international NIH-sponsored CLL Research Consortium (CRC).

Catriona Jamieson, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Division of Hematology-Oncology; Deputy Director, Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center; Chief, Division of Regenerative Medicine, UC San Diego; Director, Stem Cell Research at Moores UC San Diego Cancer Center

Dr. Jamieson is both a hematologist-oncologist and stem cell biologist. She became an instructor at Stanford in 2003, following a post-doctoral stem cell biology research fellowship. She then joined the UC San Diego faculty of medicine. She was the first recipient of a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) grant to derive and characterize cancer stem cells from embryonic stem cells and has received a number of awards including the Forbeck Scholar Award. Jamieson received her B.Sc. in Biology (Genetics), Ph.D. in Microbiology and M.D. from the University of British Columbia. After completing a residency program in Internal Medicine, she trained at Stanford University Medical Center in bone marrow transplantation and hematology.