2010 ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
Conference Sponsors
Conference Summary
The UKNSCN’s third annual stem cell science conference was held in Nottingham from 12-14 July. The conference was a great success, with 450 delegates in attendance, and 45 companies and organisations participating in the trade exhibition held alongside the plenary programme. The conference featured a packed programme, brimming with the latest cutting edge science and novel research in the fields of stem cell and regenerative medicine. Speakers represented a wide-range of institutions from across the UK; the three day programme also featured a number of overseas speakers.
The plenary sessions covered the range and breadth of research into stem cells and regenerative medicine. Sessions topics covered stem cells in development and stem cell functional control; stem cell isolation, culture and differentiation; stem cells in disease, and their use for disease modelling and toxicology, as well as stem cell applications in replacement and repair.
The programme included concurrent parallel workshop agendas focused on epigenetics and iPS cells, cancer stem cells, regulation and patenting, ethics, technology adoption by the NHS, cell culture optimisation and imaging techniques.
One of the highlights of day one was the annual Dame Anne McLaren Memorial Lecture, delivered this year by Professor Fiona Watt from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research in Cambridge. Professor Watt presented recent work from her research group on Stem cell niche interactions in mammalian epidermis. She told the audience how her group aims to better define the stem cell population in the adult skin, and understand the environmental signals that regulate cell fate.
Other keynote speakers at the conference were Professor David Warburton (Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles) and Dr Marc Peschanski (I-STEM, Paris). Professor Warburton presented interesting work on the use of human amniotic fluid stem cells (AFSCs) and their ability to migrate to, and repair the damaged mouse lung. Dr Peschanski’s presentation focused on the role of stem cells in studying and alleviating Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease and included some compelling video footage of patients who had received stem cell treatments.
Professor Warburton’s, Professor Watt’s and Dr Peschanski’s work received coverage in the UK national media as a result of their participation in the conference. Other presentations that attracted particular interest from the news media included: Andrew Johnson’s (University of Nottingham) work on the regenerative salamander, Kevin Docherty’s (University of Aberdeen) findings on stem cells and gender effects in adolescent obesity, John Fisher’s (University of Leeds) work on biological scaffolds for tissue replacement and Richard Wade-Martins (University of Oxford) presentation of his group’s latest findings on iPS cell neuronal differentiation, and the recently established Oxford Parkinson’s disease centre where a study of 1500 early stage Parkinson’s disease patients will begin soon. Please see the Network's press releases for more details.
The conference dinner was attended by over 270 delegates and took place at the magnificent Kelham Hall. The uplifting after dinner speech was delivered by Professor Sir John Gurdon FRS, who reflected on both his career in re-programming and progress in the field of stem cell biology.
Conference Photo Galleries
The total cost of the second conference amounted to approximately £180k. After income from delegate fees and sponsorship is taken into account, the real cost to UKNSCN was approximately £11k. For the third year running therefore, UKNSCN has subsidised the meeting but, on this occasion, the costs amounted to roughly 6% of UKNSCN’s current operating budget of £180k per annum. The 2010 conference was therefore the most successful to date in financial terms.
Acknowledgements
UKNSCN acknowledges the valuable contribution of its contracted events management company (Dynamic Events Limited) to the success of the 2010 conference. It also acknowledges the hard work of the conference programme committee which was chaired by Professor Jon Frampton (Birmingham) and included Dr Josh Brickman (Edinburgh), Dr Chris Denning (University of Nottingham), Professor Peter Andrews (Sheffield), Professor Anthony Hollander (Bristol),Dr Kate Storey (Dundee) and Dr Paul Riley (UCL).
Acknowledgements are also due to the 11 sponsors of the 2010 conference: University of Nottingham, Miltenyi Biotec Ltd, Stemcell Technologies Inc., Cyntellect Europe Ltd, the Science and Technology Department of the French Embassy in London, BioCity Nottingham, Medilink East Midlands, Tocris Bioscience, Thermo Scientific, ReNeuron Group plc, BD Biosciences and Epistem plc.
Presentations from the Conference
Presentations given at the first UK Stem Cell Bank Open Forum held at the UKNSCN third annual conference are now available below:
Presentations Available from Parallel Workshop H: Technology Adoption by the NHS and Reimbursement’
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