Founders/Scientific Advisory Board
Pioneers in Stem Cell Discovery
The Company's scientific founders, Irving Weissman, M.D., Fred Gage, Ph.D., and David Anderson, Ph.D., were responsible for the discovery of the mammalian blood, brain and peripheral nervous system stem cells, respectively. They continue to make significant contributions to the Company's research as members of its Scientific Advisory Board ("SAB"). The Company's COO, Dr. Ann Tsukamoto, co-discovered the human blood stem cell while at SyStemix, Inc. Dr. Nobuko Uchida, VP of Stem Cell Biology at StemCells, Inc., discovered the human neural stem cell.
Irving L. Weissman
Irving L. Weissman, M.D., is the Karel and Avice Beekhuis Professor of Cancer Biology, Professor of Pathology, and Professor of Developmental Biology at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, Palo Alto, California. Dr. Weissman's lab was responsible for the discovery of the first ever mammalian stem cell, the hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cell. Dr. Weissman was responsible for the formation of three stem cell companies, SyStemix, Inc., StemCells, Inc., and Cellerant, Inc. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards of StemCells and Cellerant. Dr. Weissman co-discovered the mammalian and human hematopoietic stem cells and the human neural stem cell. Past achievements of Dr. Weissman's laboratory include identification of the states of development between stem cells and mature blood cells and identification of the states of thymic lymphocyte development. More recently, his laboratory at Stanford has developed accurate mouse models of human leukemias, and has shown the central role of inhibition of programmed cell death in that process. Dr. Weissman has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He has received the Kaiser Award for Excellence in Preclinical Teaching, the Pasarow Foundation Award, and the Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health.
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Fred Gage
Fred Gage, Ph.D., is Professor, Laboratory of Genetics, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California and Adjunct Professor, Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, California. Dr. Gage's lab was the first to discover the mammalian central nervous system stem cell. His research focus is on the development of strategies to induce recovery of function following central nervous system (CNS) damage. Dr. Gage is a co-founder of StemCells and a member of its SAB. Dr. Gage also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Ceregene, Inc. Dr. Gage has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1993 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health and Education, the Christopher Reeves Medal, the Decade of the Brain Medal, the Max-Planck research Prize, and the Pasarow Foundation Award. In 2003, Professor Gage was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
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David J. Anderson
David J. Anderson, Ph.D., is Professor of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His laboratory was the first to isolate a multipotent, self-renewing, stem cell for the peripheral nervous system, the first to identify instructive signals that promote the differentiation of these stem cells along various lineages, and the first to accomplish a direct purification of peripheral neural stem cells from uncultured tissue. Dr. Anderson's laboratory also was the first to isolate transcription factors that act as master regulators of neuronal fate. More recently, he has identified signals that tell a neural stem cell to differentiate to a glial cell rather than a neuron. Dr. Anderson is a co-founder of StemCells and a member of its SAB. Dr. Anderson also serves on the SAB of Allen Institute for Brain Science. He has held a presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a Sloan foundation Fellowship in Neuroscience, and has been Donald D. Matson lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He has received the Charles Judson Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomy, and the 1999 W. Alden Spencer Award in Neurobiology from Columbia University
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