Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Production and Utility in Regenerative Medicine

This event  has CPD accreditation and will have a  discussion panel session.  

On registration you will be able to submit your questions to the panel that will be asked by the chair on the day of the event

9:00 – 9:45            Registration

9:45 – 10:00         Introduction by the Chair:  Dr Ludovic Vallier, Anne McLaren Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine, University of Cambridge

10:00 – 10:30       Liver and pancreas: regenerative medicine bench to bedside

Professor Neil Hanley, University of Manchester, UK

This talk will discuss the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells towards liver and pancreatic phenotypes and the potential clinical benefit that can be derived from these cells.

10:30 – 11:00       Talk title to be confirmed

                                Paul A. De Sousa, Senior Research Fellow, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh

11:00 – 11:05       Speakers’ photo

11:05 – 11:30       Mid-morning break,  Poster Viewing and  Trade Show

11:30   – 12:00     Talk title to be confirmed

                               Dr Jose Silva, Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, Cambridge, UK

12:00  – 12:30     Translating Research Into Viable Clinical Treatments.  How to build on 60 years of patient focused clinical delivery.
Dr Simon Ellison, Commercial Manager, NHSBT Clinical Translation Partnerships, UK

• The criticality of managing the process from consent to patient.
• Utilising open innovation partnerships can deliver treatments and revenue.
• How to generate patient focused manufacturing and scale up.
• Accessing validated national cold supply chains

12:30–13:30        Lunch,  Poster Viewing and  Trade Show

13:30 – 14:30       Question and Answer Session

Delegates will be asked to submit questions to a panel of experts.  Questions can be submitted before the event or on the day

14:30 – 15:00      Deriving Functional Hepatocyte Like Cells from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Dr David C. Hay, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine,Edinburgh
With the advent of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, it is now feasible to generate iPSCs with a defined genotype or disease state. When coupled with direct differentiation to a defined lineage, such as hepatocyte like cells (HLCs), iPSCs may revolutionize the way we study human liver biology and facilitate the generation of efficient "off the shelf" models. The iPSC-derived HLCs exhibit hepatic morphology and express hepatic markers. Additionally, iPSC-derived HLC display CYP1A2, CYP2C9 and CYP3A4 metabolism, which is essential for drug and toxicology testing. Although these models are promising, iPSC-derived HLCs, like primary human hepatocytes, demonstrate limited viability and phenotypic instability (2 days) on the current state of the art tissue culture substratum, matrigel. To overcome the issues of phenotypic stability and viability we have screened a polymer library and identified a defined supporting basement matrix which supports liver function for a minimum of 15 days in vitro.

15:00  – 15:30      Afternoon Tea/Coffee, Poster Viewing and  Trade Show

15:30  – 16:00      TBC

16:00 – 16:30       TBC

16:30      Chairman’s summing up: 

About the chair
Dr Ludovic Vallier is a member of the Department of Surgery and junior principal investigator in the newly opened Anne McLaren  laboratory for regenerative medicine (LRM, Cambridge). The Vallier laboratory study mechanisms controlling differentiation of  pluripotent cells pancreas and liver. These studies use human Embryonic Stem Cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells as an in vitro model of development in combination with functional analyses. Overall, the objective of the allier laboratory objective is not only knowing how to control differentiation of human ESCs into specific endodermal cell types (including pancreas and liver progenitors), but also to generate fully functional cell type for clinical applications. hIPSCs and liver metabolic diseases.

About the Speakers
Dr David Hay (DH) is a RCUK Fellow and Group Leader at the University of Edinburgh’s MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine. DH has worked in the field of pluripotent stem cell biology over the last decade. His research has highlighted the important role that cell physiology and chemical biology plays in the generation of high fidelity models of human liver function from pluripotent stem cell populations.  The impact of this work has led to over 20 publications in the stem cell field and regular appearances at high profile international conferences.

Simon Ellison is developing strategies that are enabling the National Blood Service to utilise its technical skills, GMP facilities, and clinical contacts to provide contract manufacturing services to the growing cellular therapy field, under the brand of Clinical Translation Partnerships (CTP).  Simon has an MSc in Environmental Science from Newcastle University and subsequently an MBA from Oxford Books University focusing on the management of innovative collaborations. Simon’s career started with Sartorius, managing both national and international commercial channels, and launching new products into emerging markets.  He has since worked in a variety of bio-pharmaceutical markets ranging from antibodies to ultra-pure water, delivering novel strategies to take companies forward.  Simon now brings these commercial skills into the not-for-profit sector, initially as Commercial Director for the National Pharmacy Association, managing a partnership based turnover of £7m and developing innovative partnerships with Santander and Learn Direct.  He now sits on the BIA’s Cellular Therapy & RegenMed Industry Group Advisory Committee, and works within the National Blood Service driving strategies to utilises their clean rooms, skills, knowledge and logistics to help regenerative medicine companies translate their research into commercially viable treatments.Clinical Trial Partnerships (CTP) enables companies, academics and clinicians to develop their production into GMP systems, optimise the processes, and develop viable cold supplies chains in partnership with the National Blood Service.  This gives the cellular therapy market access to a unique skill set built within the NHS and currently delivering over 2 million cellular therapies annually.

Neil Hanley (FRCP, PhD) is Chair of Medicine and Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in Clinical Science at the University of Manchester. He is a consultant endocrinologist at the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CMFT) where he also directs the Academy for Training & Education at the Manchester NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. He researches human developmental biology, focusing on endocrinology and aspects of stem cell biology.  A major interest is how beta cells develop in the pancreas.  Understanding development is relevant to cell replacement and regeneration of beta cells as novel therapy for diabetes. This includes focus on the transcription factor, SOX9, where his group collaborates with that of Dr Karen Piper Hanley. It is emerging that SOX9 plays a major role in regulating extracellular matrix components both during development and in disease such as fibrosis.  He is also part of the Stem Cells for Safer Medicine consortium (www.SC4SM.org) with the ultimate goal of generating hepatocyte-like cells for drug toxicity screening.  This latter work is in collaboration with colleagues at the MRC Centre in Drug Safety Science at the University of Liverpool.