Talks
New York Stem Cell Foundation: Live Experiment & Ask Me Anything
Friday June 24, 16:05, Alternative Stage GNO
Susan Solomon, CEO and Founder of The New York Stem Cell Foundation
Valentina Fossati, Senior Research Investigator at The New York Stem Cell Foundation
Daniel Paull, Senior Vice President, Discovery & Platform Development at The New York Stem Cell Foundation
Scientists from The New York Stem Cell Foundation gave the audience an opportunity to get a real-time look into their microscope.
During their presentation on the Greek National Opera’s Alternative Stage, they explained how stem cells can be transformed in the laboratory into different types of cells (brain cells, heart cells, etc.).
With its research, The New York Stem Cell Foundation, a nonprofit that has focused on the study of stem cells since 2005, aims to accelerate treatment for diseases such as Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, and more, NYSCF CEO and founder Susan Solomon said.
She began her presentation by explaining that the trillions of cells found in the human body come from stem cells. In the lab, she said, scientists can mimic a disease by taking cells from people who suffer from it.
As an example, she showcased how a small sample of her own skin tissue was converted into her own stem cells over the course of 6 months.
Her team froze the stem cells and subsequently shipped them to the Hellenic Pasteur Institute in Athens, where scientists thawed and continued to grow them. Researchers Valentina Fossati and Daniel Paull then illustrated what Solomon's skin cells look like under the microscope today, showing the audience their transformation into stem cells and neurons.
Next, Valentina Fossati, senior research investigator at NYSCF, showed how miniaturized brains can be created with tiny brain cells that "behave in the same way they would in the human brain." She also showed how heart cells created from Solomon's stem cells beat at the exact same rate as Susan’s heart.
Fossati, whose research is focused on the study of brain cells, presented a number of innovative studies that included sending patient brain cells to the International Space Station to understand cellular aging and degeneration in a microgravity environment.
Stressing the need for precision medicine, Solomon then said that, for the past ten years, her multidisciplinary team has been developing technology to allow them to group people together into “genetic baskets,” in a bid to reflect the diversity of the population.
Daniel Paull, Senior Vice President of Discovery & Platform Development at The New York Stem Cell Foundation, then took the floor and showed how biology intersects with computer science in various fields. He explained how robots can successfully grow cells, just as humans would do in a lab, but can also conduct large-scale data analyses for diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes, and more.
Solomon finished the presentation by thanking the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) for its support and noting that The New York Stem Cell Foundation has created a huge library of cells from thousands of patients intended to further contribute to research.
Being a cancer survivor herself, she believes that this data will help in studying and treating diseases that affect different people differently. "In order to have safe and effective treatments, we need to respect our [genetic] differences and be able to probe them," she concluded.