Appendix B

Speaker Biographical Sketches

Richard Behringer, M.D., is a professor in the Department of Genetics and the Ben F. Love Chair for Cancer Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Behringer’s research focuses on mammalian developmental genetics, including organogenesis, stem cells, and evolution. Dr. Behringer also conducts field studies on Kangaroo Island in Australia and on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. Previously, he was the director of the Molecular Embryology of the Mouse course at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the director of the Embryology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He is one of the editors of the 3rd and 4th editions of Manipulating the Mouse Embryo: A Laboratory Manual and the co-author with Dr. Virginia Papaioannou of Mouse Phenotypes: A Handbook of Mutation Analysis, both published by CSHL Press. Through social media (Twitter @rrbehringer), he is an advocate for developmental biology, genetics, and reproductive biology.

Ali Brivanlou, Ph.D., is the Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Molecular Embryology at The Rockefeller University. Dr. Brivanlou received his doctoral degree in 1990 from the University of California, Berkeley, after receiving his M.S. in biochemistry from the Université des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc. He joined The Rockefeller University in 1994 as an assistant professor after postdoctoral work in Douglas Melton’s lab at Harvard University. Among his many awards are the Irma T. Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Trusts Career Scientist Award, the Searle Scholar Award, the James A. Shannon Director’s

Award from the National Institutes of Health, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Dr. Brivanlou also held research positions at International Genetic Engineering Inc. and the Molecular Biology Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Brivanlou has received more than 20 research funding awards and grants and is the recipient of, among numerous other honors, The Rockefeller University Teaching Award, the John Merck Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Wilson S. Stone Memorial Award. He is currently a board member of the Research Foundation to Cure Aids, a member of the Scientific Advisory Council Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance, a member of the Postdoctoral Awards Review Committee at The Rockefeller University, and the director of the Tri-Institutional (Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cornell Medical School, and The Rockefeller University) Human Embryonic Stem Cell Derivation Unit as well as the chair of its steering committee, among many other leadership positions at stem cell–focused initiatives.

Shawn L. Chavez, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Reproductive and Developmental Sciences at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) as well as in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), where she has been a faculty member since September 2013. Dr. Chavez obtained her Ph.D. in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from Yale University and her B.S. in biological sciences from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, and at Stanford University. Her research interests focus on the use of real-time imaging and low-input next-generation sequencing to investigate the genetic, epigenetic, and chromosomal requirements of early embryogenesis and placentation in nonhuman primates and other mammals. In particular, her laboratory aims to determine how whole chromosomal abnormalities (aneuploidy) and sub-chromosomal instability may arise or be resolved during pre-implantation development. She is also actively examining the molecular and cellular connections between the formation of the placental-derived trophectoderm layer in embryos and subsequent placentation in normal pregnancies versus those complicated by preterm labor. Collectively, the goals of this research are to enhance our understanding of normal gametogenesis, embryogenesis, and placentation across different mammalian species, while improving in vitro fertilization outcomes for infertile couples and preventing embryo or fetal loss during pregnancy.

Amander Clark, Ph.D., is a professor in and the chair of the Department of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is a key member of the UCLA Eli & Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research and an executive board member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. As an independent principal investigator, Dr. Clark’s research is focused on germ-line development, epigenetic reprogramming, and in vitro gametogenesis using pluripotent stem cells.

Heidi Cook-Andersen, M.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego, with appointments in both the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and the Division of Biological Sciences. Her laboratory combines interests developed during her basic science training in molecular biology and clinical training in reproductive endocrinology and infertility to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie oocyte and embryo developmental competence in mammals. A major long-term goal of these studies is to improve approaches to diagnose and treat infertility.

Jianping Fu, Ph.D., is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research group integrates micro/nanoengineering, mechanobiology, and stem cell biology for advancing understandings of human development and cancer biology.

Martín García-Castro, Ph.D., is an associate professor of biomedical sciences at the University of California, Riverside. His laboratory focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern the formation and differentiation potential of neural crest cells (NCCs). His laboratory aims to uncover and characterize the time, tissues, and molecular pathways regulating NCC formation and to assess the effects of the early environment on NCC differentiation potential. His lab has pioneered work analyzing earlier events in the formation of NCCs in amniotes, and identified Pax7 as a critical transcription factor during early avian neural crest development. They are now investigating its mechanism of action (its regulation, splice variants, interacting partners, and their roles). Dr. García-Castro’s lab is using a pan-amniote approach to identify critical mechanisms in early neural crest (NC) development. The lab’s research challenges current dogmas and has established new paradigms for studying NC development in diverse species (chick, mouse, rabbit, and human). Its work in birds uses chick and quail embryos to identify the earliest events in NC specification and induction through explant cultures, fate map

studies, grafting experiments, expression analysis, and single-cell studies. It is also invested in determining the transcriptional effectors of the signaling pathways it had previously identified as critical for NC induction (BMP, Wnt, and FGF). In mouse embryos the lab is establishing the spatiotemporal expression of early NC markers including critical transcription factors and determining the contribution of Pax7 progenitors to NC derivatives using different transgenic approaches. Dr. García-Castro’s lab has adopted the rabbit as an alternative model for mammalian NC development and is investigating basic profiles of expression of NC markers, and for the first time in a mammal his research team is simultaneously investigating NC specification/induction and signaling requirements. To deliver an effective translational approach to human health issues the lab has embraced human NC studies. Importantly, those in Dr. García-Castro’s lab have developed a surrogate model of human NC based on human embryonic stem cells, infused by the understanding developed at the lab of early NC biology in model organisms.

Ted Golos, Ph.D., is a professor in and the chair of the Department of Comparative Biosciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His laboratory works on the biology of the maternal–fetal interface in nonhuman primate models, with particular focus on placental development and function.

Arnold Kriegstein, M.D., Ph.D., is the John Bowes Distinguished Professor in Stem Cell and Tissue Biology and the founding director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Kriegstein received a B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from New York University in 1977. He subsequently completed residency training in neurology at the Harvard Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He has held academic appointments at Stanford University, Yale University, and Columbia University. In 2004 he joined the Neurology Department at UCSF. Dr. Kriegstein’s own research focuses on the way in which neural stem and progenitor cells in the embryonic brain produce neurons and the ways in which this information can be used for cell-based therapies to treat diseases of the nervous system. His lab found that radial glial cells are neuronal stem cells in the developing brain and identified a second type of precursor cell produced by radial glial cells that is responsible for generating specific neuronal subtypes. He has recently begun to characterize the progenitor cells within the developing human brain, where he discovered a novel radial glia subtype that contributes to

the huge expansion of neuron number that characterizes human cerebral cortex.

Kathy Niakan, Ph.D., is a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London investigating the mechanisms of lineage specification in human embryos and stem cells. Dr. Niakan obtained a B.Sc. in cell and molecular biology and a B.A. in English literature from the University of Washington. She was inspired to pursue molecular biology and genetics following an undergraduate research experience in the laboratory of Wendy Raskind, with the support of a Mary Gates Research Scholarship. She obtained her Ph.D. at University of California, Los Angeles, with Edward McCabe where she researched stem cell and developmental biology and was supported by a National Institutes of Health predoctoral training grant, Paul D. Boyer Fellowship, and a Chancellor’s Dissertation Year Fellowship. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Kevin Eggan at Harvard University where she gained experience working with human and mouse pluripotent stem cells and focused on understanding human embryogenesis and the regulation of pluripotency. She then moved to the University of Cambridge as a Centre for Trophoblast Research Next Generation Fellow at the Anne McLaren Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine where she continued to investigate the molecular basis of early cell fate decisions in humans and mice.

Mana Parast, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor in residence in pathology at the University of California, San Diego. She is also a perinatal pathologist and placental biologist. She uses pluripotent stem cells to model and study human trophoblast lineage specification and differentiation in the setting of both normal development and disease.

Martin Pera, Ph.D., is a professor at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. He is an expert in human pluripotent stem cell biology, and his laboratory studies the extrinsic regulation of growth and differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. The Pera lab uses mouse and human pluripotent stem cells to model neural development, the response of the nervous system to injury, and age-related macular degeneration.

Renee Reijo Pera, Ph.D., is the vice president of research and economic development at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). Prior to Cal Poly, she served as the vice president for research at Montana State University, was an endowed professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at Stanford University, and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Reijo Pera is

an expert on human development, especially the first 6 days of embryonic development and the development of the human germ cell lineage. She has received recognition and awards for her work and teaching from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Time, Newsweek, the Society for the Study of Reproduction, and the National Academy of Inventors.

Nicolas Rivron, Ph.D., is the group leader for the laboratory for synthetic mammalian development at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna. Dr. Rivron is a stem cell biologist and a tissue engineer whose laboratory created the blastoid system, the first model of the preimplantation conceptus generated solely from stem cells. His laboratory also develops microsystem screening platforms and computational technologies to systematically induce, modulate, and analyze self-organization in vitro.

R. Michael Roberts, D.Phil., is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of Missouri. He is currently an investigator in the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center. He gained his B.A. (1962) and D.Phil. (1965) in plant sciences from Oxford University, England, where he studied root development in corn, but since the mid-1970s has worked primarily as a reproductive biologist. Dr. Roberts is known for his work on uterine secretions, particularly the iron-binding acid phosphatase, uteroferrin, in the pig, and on how the early embryo signals its presence to the mother in ruminant species through the production of small proteins called interferons. He has also studied the role of other unique trophoblast proteins in pregnancy and has (with colleague Jon Green) developed a pregnancy test for cattle which is sold by IDEXX Corp. He made a major transition in research direction in 2003 and began to emphasize the use of pluripotent stem cells to study the emergence and differentiation of trophoblast. His group has also made contributions to the culture of such cells, particularly the importance of low oxygen atmospheres to control differentiation. His was among the first laboratories to describe the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells from an ungulate species, the pig, and it has recently been generating iPS cell lines from human umbilical cords to study preeclampsia. Dr. Roberts was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996 and shared the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 2003.

Paul Robson, Ph.D., is the director of the Single Cell Biology Laboratory at The Jackson Laboratory in Farmington, Connecticut. He is trained in molecular biology and genetics (B.Sc., University of Guelph), biochemistry (Ph.D., University of Toronto/Sickkids), and developmental biology (postdoc, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) prior to establishing his developmental cellomics laboratory at the Genome Institute of Singapore

(2002–2014). He joined The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in 2014. In Singapore his work focused on elucidating the regulatory networks of early embryonic development and of embryonic stem cells, in mouse and human. In 2010 his interests in gaining a molecular understanding of cell fate decisions led to one of the first studies employing single-cell gene expression technologies. Since then he has continued to apply such technologies to understand the biology of early development, cancer, and immunology. Current research interests include using human pluripotent cells to model and study human peri-implantation biology with a focus on human/simian-specific features.

Janet Rossant, Ph.D., FRS, FRSC, is the president and the scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation and a senior scientist and the chief of research emeritus at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She is an internationally recognized developmental and stem cell biologist who explores the origins of stem cells in the early embryo and their applications to understanding and treating human disease.

Aryeh Warmflash, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of biosceiences and bioengineering at Rice University. He received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago and did postdoctoral training at The Rockefeller University. His lab uses human embryonic stem cells to study early embryonic development quantitatively.

Jun Wu, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. Dr. Wu’s work has contributed to the generation of new stem cells for basic and translational studies and to developing novel and efficient genome and epigenome editing tools. His group is particularly interested in harnessing stem cell–derived interspecies chimeras and synthetic embryos for studying early mammalian development, pluripotency and molecular mechanisms of xenogeneic barriers.

Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, Ph.D., is a professor of mammalian development and stem cell biology at the University of Cambridge and the Bren Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Zernicka-Goetz carried out her Ph.D. at the University of Warsaw, Poland, under supervision of Andrzej Tarkowski. She moved to Cambridge in 1995 to join the Martin Evans group with the long-term aim of studying the mechanisms of regulative nature of development and spatial patterning in the mouse embryo. In 1997 she was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship from the Lister Institute to start her indepen-

dent group at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. In 2001 she became a Wellcome Senior Research Fellow. In 2010 she became a professor of mammalian development and stem cell biology. She received a Promising Young Scientist Prize from Foundation for Polish Science in 1993 and a Young Investigator Award from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2001, was elected to EMBO membership in 2007, and became a fellow of the British Academy of Medical Science in 2013.