Stem cell symposium to focus on hurdles in stem cell therapy development

The fifth annual Wisconsin Stem Cell Symposium, called “The Road to Stem Cell Applications: Bioprocessing, Safety and Preclinical Evaluation,” will be held on Wednesday, April 21 just outside of Madison.

World leaders in stem cell research will address key hurdles to stem cell therapeutics in clinical and commercial applications.

This public symposium is co-coordinated by the University of Wisconsin Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center, the UW-Madison Waisman Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility and the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center Institute. These organizations, along with The Automation Partnership, Promega Corporation and WiCell Research Institute, are serving as Platinum Sponsors.

Featured speakers include Peter Andrews of the University of Sheffield; Peter Zandstra of the University of Toronto; Raymond Lund of the Oregon Health Science University; Brent McCright of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration; Thomas B. Okarma, Ph.D., M.D., president, chief executive officer, Geron; Lynn Allen-Hoffman of Stratatech Coroporation and UW–Madison; and, Derek Hei, Linda Hogle, Tim Kamp and Amish Raval of UW–Madison.

Questions to be addressed include:

• What role does cell line characterization and banking play in supporting the transition of stem cell research into clinical and commercial applications?
• What key issues will the FDA focus on when reviewing applications to move a cell therapy into early-stage human clinical trials?
• What safety issues need to be addressed when moving a stem cell therapy into human clinical trials and how can research studies be used to assess risk?
• What lessons have we learned from completed and on-going cell therapeutic clinical trials?
• What challenges will we face in delivering cell therapeutics to patients and how can these challenges be addressed?
• What manufacturing challenges remain for commercial applications involving stem cells?

The daylong symposium, which is open to the public with a registration fee of $90, will be held at Promega Corporation’s BioPharmaceutical Technology Center, 5445 E. Cheryl Parkway, Fitchburg. For more information, visit http://www.btci.org