√ 20 Stem Cell Person Of The Year 2017 Award Nominees

Nominations have closed for the 2017 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award and we have a great group of nominees. I’ve listed them below in alphabetical order, along with a bit of description of who they are, which includes in some cases the language used by the nominator(s). Where possible I’ve included a link to a helpful webpage about them. You can read more about this award here in an archive of posts about it over the years. Note that folks at stem cell clinics or others involved in non-compliant work cannot be nominees for the Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. 

Soon Internet voting to choose the finalists will begin (the top 1/2 vote getters of the nominees become finalists), from which I will choose the one winner.

Although I have mixed feelings on the Internet voting since some people try to game the system that way and Internet voting has its issues more broadly, I decided to keep the vote to pick finalists for now as I really like that in this way this blog’s community gets to participate in the Stem Cell Person of the Year Award process.

Here are the 20 award nominees.

Alexey Bersenev, Director, Advanced Cell Therapy Lab at Yale University, stem cell researcher and long-time advocate for rigorous, responsible stem cell and cell therapy clinical efforts. Posts on his site here.

Anthony Atala, Professor and Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Chair of the Department of Urology at Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina. Stem cell research scholar, working on a number of important areas including tissue/organ transplantation based on stem cells. Advocate for the regenerative medicine field and winner of numerous awards.

Bao-Ngoc Nguyen, Science and Technology Policy Fellow, Senate Health Committee, who was a driving force behind California’s groundbreaking new law on stem cell therapies.

David Bales, Founder of Texans for Stem Cells, which was renamed Texans for Cures, energized stem cell advocate for responsible therapy development.

Dieter Egli, Assistant Professor Columbia University, developmental biologist, pioneer in pluripotent stem cell, embryonic development, and somatic cell nuclear transfer research. Outspoken advocate for the field.

Fabrisia Ambrosio, PhD, MPT, Associate Professor, at the University of Pittsburgh, pioneer in emerging field of Regenerative Rehabilitation.

Frances Verter, Founder & Director, Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood Foundation & CellTrials.org. Pioneering stem cell advocate, providing balanced information to patients and the field.

Hossein Baharvand, Director of Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, pioneering stem cell researcher in Iran, working on both pluripotent and mesenchymal stem cells.

Judy Roberson. Very effective, tireless Huntington’s Disease (HD) and stem cell research advocate, who makes concrete positive steps a reality.

Jun Takahashi, Professor at CiRA, Kyoto University. Stem cell scientist conducting cutting-edge research on using IPS cells clinically for neurological disorders including Parkinson’s Disease.

Leigh Turner, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota. Bioethicist, a leader in challenging predatory stem cell clinics who takes risks to make a positive impact.

Madeline Lancaster, Group Leader MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, pioneer in stem cell-based organoid research and in particular in innovative, cerebral organoid (“mini-brains”) technology.

Martin Pera, Professor The Jackson Laboratory, pioneering stem cell and pluripotent stem cell researcher, and one of the discoverers of embryonic stem cells.

Mary Bass, Executive Director, Americans for Cures, very effective stem cell advocate and communicator who makes a strong, positive difference.

Megan Munsie, Associate Professor, Deputy Director of the Centre for Stem Cell Systems and Head of Education, Ethics, Law & Community Awareness Unit, Stem Cells Australia, at University of Melbourne. Leading scientist and advocate of responsible use of stem cell and regenerative medicine technologies.

Michele De Luca, Professor, University of Modena, and Director of Centre for Regenerative Medicine. Stem cell research pioneer and leader of team that recently replaced a boy’s epidermis using an innovative combination cell-gene therapy.

Professor Peter Choong from St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne and Professor Gordon Wallace, ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES). Pioneered the handheld 3D printing pen (joint nomination).

Sally Temple, Scientific Director, Co-Founder, and Principle Investigator at the Neural Stem Cell Institute as well as Past-President of ISSCR and MacArthur Fellow. Innovative stem cell researcher and scholar, also working to make a difference on policy.

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Professor at OHSU, innovator at the cutting-edge intersection of stem cell and reproductive biology fields.

Susan Solomon, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of NYSCF, innovator, leading positive influencer in the stem cell and regenerative medicine field.

Although only half of these nominees can be finalists and only one can receive the Stem Cell Person of the Year Award, what an amazing group overall. I hope everyone reading this post can via the group of nominees learn about someone new to them who has big impact.

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√ 10 Stem Cell Person Of The Year Award Finalists 2017

The votes are in and the community has picked its top 10 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award finalists.

Both the 20 nominees and now the 10 finalists are a diverse group. The finalists include six women and four men, from five countries and four different continents.

We also got votes from readers of the blog from 32 different countries spanning every continent, which is exciting.

This year’s finalists are mostly scientists, but it’s a diverse group that also includes advocates and the top vote getter, Bao Nguyen, had impact at the legal level leading the push for a stem cell therapy law that was ultimately passed here in California. And many of the stem cell and regenerative medicine scientists are known not only for their great, innovative research, but also for being advocates and taking a stand for good science. Sometimes taking that stand brings real risks with it and that should be acknowledged. Some of the scientists are more clinically-oriented while others are basic scientists who have translational work ongoing.

Certain names are likely familiar to you, but others maybe not so much. Part of the point of the Stem Cell Person of the Year Award is to spread the word about people doing interesting things the stem cell and regenerative medicine world. You can read a bit about the 10 finalists and 20 overall nominees here. You can also Google them.

Now, the tough task turns to me to pick just one winner from these top 10 finalists.

Who had the biggest, positive impact with outside-the-box thinking and risk taking? Who gets the Award and the $2,000 prize?

I’m going to ponder this question for a few days and then announce the winner.

Our past winners of Stem Cell Person of the Year are a great bunch:

• ALS and stem cell patient advocate Ted Harada won posthumously in 2016.


• Top stem cell scientist Jeanne Loring received the award in 2015. Note that Jeanne deferred getting her $2,000 prize money, which I then donated to Summit for Stem Cell, an amazing patient-based stem cell organization.


• Pioneering vision and pluripotent stem cell clinical researcher, Masayo Takahashi, won in 2014.


• Neural stem cell scientist and Italian politician Elena Cattaneo was the winner in 2013.


• Super stem cell patient advocate Roman Reed received the first award in 2012.

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√ Stem Cell Person Of The Year 2017 Award Winner: Michele De Luca

Michele De Luca, Stem Cell Person of the Year, 2017

Congratulations to Professor Michele De Luca, the winner of The Niche’s Stem Cell Person of the Year Award for 2017!

He won the Award from a strong panel of 10 finalists. The award includes a $2,000 USD prize.

I chose him because of his exceptional track record in stem cell and regenerative medicine science combined with a long record of advocating for responsible translational science.

Dr. De Luca also led an international team that recently published a groundbreaking paper on epidermal regeneration in a pediatric patient with epidermolysis bullosa. The new paper reported an innovative combination stem cell-gene therapy approach to this terrible disease. I reviewed the paper here in journal club style. The manuscript is an important starting point in new therapy development. It’s the kind of work that is very risky and needs to be done in a meticulous way. Dr. De Luca is one of the few people in the world who could have led this work.

He is also well-known for his advocacy work in Italy and around the globe for responsible stem cell-based medicine. He and others including The Niche’s 2013 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award Winner Professor Elena Cattaneo, stood up to the Stamina Foundation and its sometimes militant supporters. There were big risks to taking this stand. De Luca, Cattaneo, and Paolo Bianco, received the 2014 ISSCR Public Service Award for their advocacy work.

Dr. De Luca and his principal collaborator Dr. Graziella Pellegrini are also leading other innovative stem cell and regenerative medicine work including the development of Europe’s first stem cell-based ATMP (Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product), in the form of a new 4dukt stem cell-based therapy for vision loss called Holoclar.

Overall, Michele De Luca is an example of the kind of leader we need in the stem cell field who is both an advocate for responsible science-based medicine and a researcher who makes concrete, transformative advances.

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