Learn More -- Nine amazing speakers at this year's symposium:
Keynote: Dr. Janet Rossant, Professor of Molecular Genetics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Toronto, and Chief of Research at The Hospital for Sick Children
Dr. Rossant is internationally recognized for her pioneering research in mouse genetics. Her major findings are related to the question of how genetically identical cells adopt distinct characteristics during embryo development.
Dieter Egli, PhD
New York Stem Cell Foundation "Egg Donation and Reprogramming after Nuclear Transfer"
Ann Kiessling, PhD
Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Bedford Stem Cell Research Foundation "Are early human embryos naturally aneuploid?"
Rafael Fissore, PhD
Chair of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts "Calcium signaling during egg maturation"
Alex Meissner, PhD
Harvard University, Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Broad Institute "DNA Methylation Dynamics in Stem Cells and Development"
Laura Grabel, PhD
Professor of Biology, Wesleyan University "Embryonic stem cell-derived neurogenesis in vitro and in the hippocampus"
Maya Mitalipova, PhD
Director of Whitehead Institute's Stem Cell Facility, MIT "Cellular Reprogramming"
David Keefe, MD
Chair of Ob/Gyn at New York University School of Medicine "Efficient generation of pluripotent stem cells from immature oocytes"
Chris Hempel
Founder, Addi and Cassi Fund
Dinner Speaker: "Regulatory hurdles to research"
We're delighted to report that Dr. Janet Rossant, Professor of Molecular Genetics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Toronto, and Chief of Research at The Hospital for Sick Children has graciously agreed to be our keynote speaker for the 2011 Activated Egg Symposium.
Dr. Rossant is internationally recognized for her pioneering research in mouse genetics. Her major findings are related to the question of how genetically identical cells adopt distinct characteristics during embryo development.
In 2010, she received the Premeir's Summit Award, and they made this video:
Janet Rossant grew up in the UK and trained at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. When still a graduate student, she conducted now-classic work defining cell lineages and cell fates in the early mouse embryo. (read more)
As you may know, Bedford's laboratory helps cover some of our overhead by offering a couple unique products -- GEM and PVSA -- that were developed as by-products of our research. PVSA, the newer of the two, was launched just 18 months ago.
PVSA is the first and only post-vasectomy test kit that provides CLIA certified laboratory results from a mail-in kit. This kit was developed using Bedford's patented specimen fixative and mail-in kits for research.
The kit solves a vital problem for urologists... (read more)
This award honors an alumna or alumnus who has shown superior achievement in a field other than nursing since graduating from the University of Virginia School of Nursing. It recognizes distinction in one’s field and/or contributions to another profession, business or industry, government or public service, education, science or technology, or service to humanity.
Video: Retroviruses, Reproduction, and Regenerative Medicine: The Influence of Federal Funding
Foundation scientists are deriving new stem cell lines from fertilized mouse eggs in fully defined, protein-free culture medium, GEM (Gamete Embryo Medium). GEM is a specialized fluid that simulates fluids in the womb. The goal of these experiments is to improve the efficiency of deriving new stem cell lines from testis biopsies. By studying time lapse videos of developing mouse embryos, Foundation scientists will pinpoint the exact time to add stem cell growth factors to the culture medium. Learn more
Workshop in Taiwan: Foundation scientists
get a rare look inside
Taiwan’s premiere
stem cell institute. (read the blog posts) New steps toward a
stem cell cure for HIV: Retooling cancer
therapy to use HIVresistant
bone marrow. (read the blog post) New Work on Prostate
Cancer: Finding the genes for
prostate cancer.
Timothy Ray Brown can personally affirm that stem cells cure HIV disease, according to a December 2 report in the journal BLOOD. Mr. Brown, an HIV-positive American living in Germany, had leukemia and underwent chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation in Berlin in 2007. His bone marrow match carried a rare gene mutation in the CCR5 receptor protein, rendering the transplanted cells resistant to HIV infection. Twenty months following the bone marrow transplant, the German team reported Mr. Brown's leukemia appeared cured, and there was no evidence of HIV in his blood even though he had stopped his antiviral medication prior to the bone marrow transplant. Read more
Nov 6, 2009:
Activated Egg Symposium
The Seventh Annual Symposium with Keynote: Renee A. Reijo Pera, director of Stanford’s Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education
Stem Cell Research Guidelines posted by the National Institutes of Health The NIH released a draft set of guidelines prior to publication in
the Federal Register on April 24. As predicted (link to "President
Obama's Executive Order and Stem Cell Research" on this same front page), President Obama's Executive Order 13505 expanded the use of federal funds for research on human embryonic stem cells, but those stem cells must continue to be derived by private or state funds. Click here to read guidelines as a PDF...
Bedford Research Foundation works on Project to Prevent and Cure Prostate Cancer The Bedford Research Foundation, a Massachusetts-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution, will work in conjunction with the Center for Prostate Disease Research located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and with a private company, OncoTx, LLC, to expedite clinical trials on a fundamentally new approach to the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer. Read More About this Project....
May 2, 2008: Dr. Kiessling Speaks at Alpha 2008 Dr.
Kiessling spoke to a group of international infertility experts at Alpha
2008, Istanbul, Turkey, describing the SPAR program for HIV, and
including information on Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and bacterial
infections in semen. (Download PDF)
March 29, 2008:
The Spring 2008 One-Day Workshop
The last few years have brought remarkable advances in stem cell research. For example, recent studies have shown that embryonic stem cells can be used to effectively treat acute spinal cord injury in rats. But how are these laboratory advances translated into human cures? Are there unanswered scientific questions? Are there unanswered clinical approach problems? Are there unanswered healthcare regulatory issues?
The goal of the 2008 Spinal Workshop is to bring together the three key areas: Neurosurgery, Neurology, and Basic Science to identify the remaining barriers to curing spinal cord injury. By the end of this one-day workshop, the group will have produced a publishable list of the current barriers. The report from this workship will serve as guidelines for seeking the resources necessary to solve the problems identified.
October 2007: SPAR receives the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology Prize Paper Award presented at the The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) 2007 Conference.(Download Presentation PDF)
March 30, 2007: Gov. Patrick seeks to reverse
Romney's Curb on Stem Cells Governor Deval Patrick will announce
this morning that
he wants the Department of Public Health to reverse restrictions
on stem cell
research imposed by his predecessor, according to an administration
official with direct knowledge of the governor's intentions.
S.5
Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (more
info)
Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Second Edition The second edition of Kiessling and Anderson's text, Human Embryonic
Stem Cells, continues to address the social, legal and ethical debates
resulting from the Bush Administrations restriction of federal funding
for embryonic stem cell therapy.
NPR
Fresh Air, March 29, 2007: Francis Collins on 'The Language of
God' Geneticist Francis Collins is director
of the National Human Genome Research Project. He is also an evangelical
Christian, and author
of the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for
Belief. "...it will be the kind of stem cells that don’t
come from the union of sperm and egg will be most useful."(more)
August 11, 2007 - Fertility and Sterility: 17706204 (PubMed Website with Abstract) Human parthenogenetic blastocysts derived from noninseminated cryopreserved human oocytes.
Ester Polak de Fried , Pablo Ross , Gisela Zang , Andrea Divita , Kerrianne Cunniff , Flavia Denaday , Daniel Salamone , Ann Kiessling , José Cibelli
Department of Reproductive Medicine in a medical institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina. OBJECTIVE: To report on the development of human parthenogenetic blastocysts and an in vitro attachment that was generated from noninseminated cryopreserved human oocytes for the first time. PATIENTS: Five healthy fertile donors. INTERVENTIONS: Artificial activation of noninseminated cryopreserved human oocytes after thawing, parthenote culture, and their in vitro attachment. MAINOUTCOME MEASURES: Survival rate, activation rate, cleavage rate, and blastocyst formation. RESULTS: Thirty-six of 38 cryopreserved noninseminated oocytes survived after thawing (survival rate, 94.7%). Thirty-one of 36 oocytes showed one pronucleus (activation rate, 86.1%). Thirty of 31 cleaved (cleavage rate, 96.8%). Five of 30 showed cavitation (blastocyst rate, 16.7%). CONCLUSIONS: Noninseminated cryopreserved human oocytes showed a high survival rate after thawing. They responded very satisfactorily to artificial activation, which was followed by a high rate of parthenogenetic embryos, which can develop into blastocysts. In the future, these could be a new source for development of human parthenogenetic stem cells.
August 11, 2006: Money Talks in Connecticut Too. BY DAVID JENSEN, California Stem Cell Report Blog
"One of the most straight forward things that they did I think as their overall working group is they sort of looked at the income of people in California and asked most of those people to sit on one of their boards. So they went to the very top income producing people." - Dr. Ann Kiessling
July 14, 2006 - Science Magazine - STEM CELLS:Ethical Oocytes: Available for a Price
Science 14 July 2006: 155b /
DOI: 10.1126/science.313.5784.155b (Website | PDF)
March 10, 2005: Nature Magazine - Essay - Eggs Alone by Ann A. Kiessling (website | pdf)
Nature 434, 145 (10 March 2005) | doi:10.1038/434145a; Published online 23 March 2005
Ann A. Kiessling is at the Harvard Institutes of Medicine, 4 Blackfan Circle, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Human parthenotes: an ethical source of stem cells for therapies? Eggs are enormous cells in a state of arrested expectancy. Before the advent of assisted reproductive technologies, human eggs played out their fate in the privacy of the ovary, fallopian tubes and uterus.
September
13, 2006: Los Angeles Times "New Battle
Lines Are Drawn Over Egg Donation" Ann Kiessling, director of the Bedford Stem Cell Research Foundation
in Massachusetts, said banning it was no guarantee that women wouldn't
be exploited.
"They're only going to be protected by good medical care and fully
informed consent," she said. "How well they're cared
for is independent of whether they're going to be compensated."
August
21, 2006: (PDF) Somerville Mayor Convenes Life Sciences Collaborative Mayor
Joseph Curtatone announced that the city has convened a working
group charged with encouraging investment in Somerville-based
life sciences. "Our research is both extremely promising and
far less controversial than stem cell research that requires
the use of embryonic, or fertilized, eggs," said Dr. Ann A. Kiessling...
(more)
WBUR
News: Donor Payments & Stem Cell Research By Allan Coukell January 31, 2006: (Boston) Now some scientists
here are worried that new restrictions on payments to egg donors
in Massachusetts
may
make
local stem cell research more difficult. Dr. Ann Kiessling is interviewed.
Dr.
Ann Kiessling on NPR's Science Friday December 16, 2005: Hour One: Peer Review / Egg Donation A landmark
cloning paper published last summer is plagued with problems--so
how did it get into a major scientific journal? Join guest host
Joe Palca in this hour of Science Friday for a look at peer review.
Plus, the ethics of egg donation. (more
info)
October
13, 2004: Harvard teams want OK to clone from The Boston Globe
Two separate teams of Harvard scientists are preparing to produce cloned embryos
for disease research, and one has officially applied for permission from the
university's ethical review board. View
Article
Debate
Sparks Concerns over Women's Health " BOSTON (2005-03-31) In the debate on
stem cell legislation, there's been little discussion about the impact
on the women who donate eggs for research.
Join Us: Nov 8, 2013: The Activated Egg Symposium with Keynote Mario Capecchi
Keynote: 
Dieter Egli, PhD
Ann Kiessling, PhD 
Rafael Fissore, PhD
Alex Meissner, PhD 
Laura Grabel, PhD 
Maya Mitalipova, PhD 
David Keefe, MD
Chris Hempel 
Nov 9, 2009: 
Nov 6, 2009: 
October 2007: SPAR receives the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology Prize Paper Award
The Open letter to Senator Hatch signed by 126 stem cell scientists
at the
International Society for Stem Cell Research meeting in San Francisco,
2005
S.5
Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act 
