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News — LOS ANGELES (June 12, 2023) -- Cedars-Sinai investigators studying the effects of space on stem cells will present their work at the  June 14-17 in Boston, and are available for interviews throughout the conference. 

Leaders of the two-year enterprise—funded by a $2 million grant from NASA and overseen by Cedars-Sinai—will present details of their investigation into whether stem cells grow and differentiate more efficiently in space than on Earth.

“Throughout ISSCR, we will be discussing the potential—and possibilities—of conducting stem cell research in microgravity, and the basic science as well as the translational applications of doing biomedical research in space,” said , a stem cell biologist in the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, Department of Biomedical Sciences, the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center and Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai.

In the series of missions, the first of which took place , astronauts with the International Space Station will manufacture induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The hope is that the missions will create a method for investigators to obtain large batches of stem cells.

Sharma will moderate a pre-meeting workshop titled . He will also conduct an oral presentation on the topic and lead a public symposium titled .

, executive director of the  and professor of Biomedical Sciences and Medicine, and the current Treasurer of the ISSCR, will present the session . He will also speak at the  workshop and serve on one of the panels.

“We hope attendees will appreciate the immense potential of sending stem cells into space,” Svendsen said. “This is the ideal meeting to discuss with esteemed colleagues the current successes and vast unknowns of this work.”

In addition to the sessions mentioned above, Pablo Avalos, MD, a research scientist in Svendsen's laboratory, will lead a session within the .             

Presenting posters at ISSCR 2023:

• Maria Gaby Otero, PhD—Human IPSC-Derived Dopamine Neurons on Organ-Chip to Model Parkinson Disease
• Alexandra Moser, PhD—Aging-Associated Changes in Plasma Proteome and Hippocampal Gene Expression Are Reversed by Treatment with iPSC-derived Mononuclear Phagocytes
• Michael Workman, PhD—Large-Scale Differentiation of iPSC-Derived Motor Neurons from ALS and Control Subjects 
• Madelyn Arzt—Protein-Encapsulated Doxorubicin Reduces Cardiotoxicity in hiPSC-Cardiomyocytes and Cardiac Spheroids While Maintaining Anticancer Efficacy
• Maedeh Mozneb, PhD—Multi-Lineage Heart-Chip Models Drug Cardiotoxicity and Enhances Maturation of Human Stem Cell-Derived Cardiovascular Cells
• Stephany Pohlman—Lenvatinib-Induced Inhibition of the VEGF Receptor Incites Cytotoxicity to Microvascular Endothelial Cells
• Patricia Del Rio—IPSC-Derived Macrophages as a Preventative Treatment for Knee Post Traumatic Osteoarthritis

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