Scientific Focus Groups
Amish Raval, M.D.
anr@medicine.wisc.edu
Heart and vascular disease is the number one cause of death in the world. Stem cells offer an exciting and potentially revolutionary approach to drug development and therapy. Further understanding of stem cells and therapeutic delivery is required to reach these goals so we have created a forum that fosters inter-disciplinary collaborations toward bench to bedside translation of cell technologies.
Xinyu Zhao, PhD
xinyu.zhao@wisc.edu
The Neural Regeneration Focus group brings together researchers interested in understanding the mechanisms of neural development, modeling neural disorders and harnessing the potential of neural regeneration. The group promotes communication within the group and identifies areas of collaboration. They strive to include researchers in diverse disciplines and welcome investigators working in areas outside of neural development and regeneration.
Emery Bresnick, PhD
ehbresni@wisc.edu
Hematopoietic stem cells were the first “adult” stem cells to be purified. These cells provide a powerful system for asking fundamental questions about stem cell biology, broadly relevant mechanisms of cell regulation, and organogenesis. Clinical applications involving hematopoietic stem cells have been profound, but many questions remain unanswered. Further studies with this system are expected to yield paradigm-shifting fundamental discoveries and will lead to important new advances in clinical medicine.
Wan-Ju Li, PhD
li@ortho.wisc.edu
Musculoskeletal injury and dysfunction results in more than 20 percent of all health care encounters. The costs of these clinical problems are enormous, both financially and with regards to quality of life. New treatments and preventative strategies will require close collaboration between clinicians and basic researchers. Our mission is to identify new strategies for the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders and to translate these ideas into techniques or devices that improve the lives of patients.
Sean Palecek, PhD
palecek@engr.wisc.edu
Stem cells hold great promise, but significant challenges exist to realize their potential benefits. The development and application of technology for improved culture, propagation, characterization and manipulation of stem cells is needed. Our mission is to establish a forum for interaction of investigators and expansion of research efforts related to stem cell bioengineering.