2013 Program

Dr. Mario Capecchi was keynote the tenth annual Symposium with a talk titled, “Gene Targeting into the 21st Century: Mouse Models of Human Disease from Cancer to Neuropsychiatric Disorders.”Dr. Capecchi is a Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics & Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as a 2007 Nobel Laureate for Physiology & Medicine.
Dr. Capecchi is best known for his pioneering work on the development of “gene targeting” in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. The power of this technology is that the investigator chooses both which gene to mutate and how to mutate it. This allows scientists to evaluate in detail the function of any gene during the development or post-developmental phase of the mouse.Other scheduled speakers include:

	Treena Livingston Arinzeh, PhD “Biomaterials for Stem Cell Tissue Engineering.” Dr. Arinzeh is Professor and Director of the Graduate Program, Biomedical Engineering Department at New Jersey Institute of Technology
	David Battaglia, Ph.D., H.C.L.D. “Human Egg Donation for Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer: The Oregon Perspective” Dr. Battaglia is Director of the Embryology / Andrology Laboratory at Oregon Health & Science University
	Gordon G. Carmichael, Ph.D. “Innate immunity in stem cells.” Professor, Genetics and Developmental Biology, UConn Health Center.
	Jose Cibelli, DVM, PhD “Modeling Reprogramming Using Zebrafish Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.” Dr. Cibelli is Professor of Animal Biotechnology at Michigan State University. He heads the Cellular Reprogramming Laboratory in the Departments of Animal Science and Physiology.
	David DiGiusto, PhD “Ex Vivo Engineering of Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells: Gene Therapy Towards a Cure for AIDS.” Dr. DiGiusto is a Research Professor in City of Hope’s Department of Virology and Director of the Laboratory for Cellular Medicine at Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope.
	Ken Livak, PhD “Driving Genomics to the Single-Cell Level” Dr. Livak is the Senior Scientific Fellow at Fluidigm Corporation and Alliance Manager with the Single-Cell Genomics Center as part of the Single-Cell Initiative at the Broad Institute.
	Kimberly D. Tremblay, Ph.D. “Understanding liver development; embryonic origins and bud formation.” Dr. Tremblay is Assistant Professor and Honors Program Director in the Veterinary and Animal Science Department at UMass Amherst.
	Dinner Speaker Rudolf Jaenisch, PhD Professor of Biology, MIT and Whitehead Institute Founding Member