Prof. Anil Dhawan

MD, FRCPCH, FAASLD; Professor of Paediatric Hepatology | United Kingdom

Professor Dhawan is a Professor of Paediatric Hepatology and Directs the Kings Cell therapy unit. He also heads the department of Paediatric Liver GI, Nutrition and MowatLabs at the King’s College Hospital ,London. Prof Dhawan’s basic science research interest is liver cell transplantation. His lab was the first to transplant human liver cells in UK for liver based metabolic disorders and first in the world to transplant human hepatocytes in alginate beads to treat acute liver failure in children. Prof Dhawan’s other research interests are outcome of children after liver transplantation, immunosuppression, metabolic liver disease and acute liver failure. He has published over 350 research papers and edited 3 books in paediatric hepatology and human hepatocyte transplantation. His H index is 72 with over 20000 citations. His research is funded by the DoH, NIHR, FP7 (the EU), NIH ,MRC and several other medical charities, Prof Dhawan has been past president of the Cell Transplant and regenerative medicine.

Dr. Chiara Cugno

Director - Advanced Cell Therapy Core, Sidra Medicine | Qatar

Dr. Cugno is the Director of the Advanced Cell Therapy Core and Attending Physician in Pediatric Oncology and Hematology at Sidra Medicine. She is a more than 20 year experienced medical doctor with a Board Certification in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the University of Pavia (Italy), and a II Level Master in Pediatric Hematology at the University “La Sapienza” of Rome (Italy). At Sidra, she is leading the development of the Advanced Cell Therapy Core, including a Cellular Therapy Unit for the delivery of cellular products for tissue, cell and gene therapy, and a Clinical Trial Office focused on Academic and Pharma-sponsored clinical trial management. Her research interests range from Hematopoietic Stem Cells Transplantation to cell therapy (i.e., mesenchymal stromal cell from different sources), gene therapy (i.e., gene therapy approaches in Hemophilia) and pediatric cancer. She is the recipient of several research grants and author of almost 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Edward Guindi

Gynaecologist & Former CEO of Cord: USE Cord Blood Bank | USA

Dr. Edward S. Guindi was board-certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He delivered more than 3,000 babies, prior to suffering from a near fatal, career-ending parasailing accident. He is the former Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of CORD:USE Public and Family Cord Blood Bank. At CORD:USE, Dr. Guindi assembled a team of the world’s leading cord blood pioneers and experts in the field. Dr. Guindi has more than 25 years experience in the cord blood banking field. He has authored several papers on cord blood and has given numerous public speeches about cord blood and cord tissue around the world to physicians, nurses, expectant parents, hospital administrators, politicians and the media.

Dr. Essam Abdelalim

Research Scientist at QBRI | Qatar

Dr. Abdelalim is currently a group leader (Scientist) at QBRI & Assistant Professor at HBKU. He received his PhD in Medical Science from Shiga University of Medical Science (Japan) and was later appointed as Assistant Professor in the same university. He had the privilege to set up the first pluripotent stem cell program focusing on diabetes research in Qatar at QBRI. Since March 2014, he has been leading the diabetes stem cell research at QBRI, where his research focuses on using pluripotent stem cells to understand pathophysiology underlying the development of diabetes and generating functional pancreatic cells for cell therapy. His team has established several iPSC lines from a wide range of patients with monogenic and polygenic forms of diabetes and established novel protocols for enhancing the differentiation of stem cells into insulin-secreting cells and insulin-target cells. He is currently the chair of the Steering Committee of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)-QBRI Agreement overseeing the HSCI-QBRI diabetes/ stem cell collaboration program. He serves on the editorial board of “Stem Cells and Development” and “Frontiers in Endocrinology” and serves as a reviewer for several funding agencies. He has been awarded several Research grants. Dr. Abdelalim received several prestigious awards, including the State Prize of Encouragement (Egypt) in 2012 and the President’s Award from Shiga University of Medical Science (Japan) in 2007. He is heavily involved in teaching and mentoring. He has trained 15 graduate HBKU students and among the 11 who have graduated so far, 6 are master’s and 5 are PhD students. The work of his students has been recognized nationally and internationally as indicated by receiving 9 awards, including the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Merit Award in 2019 and HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani Educational Award being granted to one of my PhD students in 2021.

Dr. Frances Verter

Founder and CEO of Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood Foundation | USA

Dr. Verter is the founder and CEO of Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the United States that is best known for its website (https://parentsguidecordblood.org). The primary mission of the Foundation is to educate parents about medical therapies and storage options for cord blood and other perinatal sources of stem cells. The Foundation maintains international lists of cord blood banks, both private and public, and runs a monthly newsletter that is followed by industry professionals. Dr. Verter is also a cofounder of Cell Trials Data (https://CellTrials.org), a group that compiles worldwide databases of cell therapy clinical trials. Her presentation at this event will showcase a paper that reviews clinical trials of cell therapy for COVID-19. Dr. Verter is originally trained as a physicist, with a PhD from Princeton University. She changed careers after her first child Shai died of cancer, and the Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood was founded in Shai’s memory.

Prof. John Wagner

M.D.; Director of the Institute for Cell, Gene and Immunotherapies | USA

John E. Wagner, M.D. is the Director of the Institute for Cell, Gene and Immunotherapies at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Wagner holds two endowed chairs—The Children's Cancer Research Fund/Hageboeck Family Chair in Childhood Cancer Research, and the University of Minnesota McKnight-Presidential Chair. Dr. Wagner's research is focused on the development of novel cell therapies for treatment of life threatening diseases. Examples include the development of regulatory T cells that could be used in the treatment of autoimmunity, organ graft rejection as well as prevention of graft-versus-host disease, thymic progenitors to repair damaged immune systems, skeletal myoblasts to repair dystrophic muscle fibers in muscular dystrophy, and expansion of the blood-forming stem cell to speed blood and marrow recovery after high doses of chemotherapy and radiation. Dr. Wagner is best known for his pioneering work on the use of placental/cord blood as a source of stem cells for transplantation – a procedure that has now been performed in more than 50,000 patients worldwide.

Dr. Mohammed Moulay

Associate Professor in Cancer Stem Cell | Saudi Arabia

Dr. Mohammed Moulay received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the USTO University, Oran Algeria in 2006. He gained a DAAD scholarship to construct his PhD degree in Cancer Stem Cells from the University of TIHO Hannover, Germany. He was recruited as assistant of professor in the Abdul-Hamid ben badis university, Mostaganem, Algeria. Dr. Moulay was promoted to an associate professor position in 2016. He was elected to be the head of the biology department at the Abdul-Hamid ben badis university until the middle of 2018. Currently, Dr. Moulay is associate professor at the Embryonic Stem cell research Unit in KFMRC. In parallel, Dr. Moulay is appointed as president of the scientific committee in IGene Center. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Sean NG

Founder & Managing Director MING Medical | Malaysia

Dr. Sean NG is the Founder & Managing Director of MING Medical. MING is a dynamic and well-positioned company carrying out research activities in a diversified array potentially using stem cell and stem cell derivatives therapies for treatment.

Dr. Siti Aminah

Stem Cell Specialist | Malaysia

Dr. Siti has worked in the clinical scientific research field since her bachelor’s degree, focusing on Stem cell research and cell therapy for her PhD. I have undertaken various research roles at research institutes and universities, both abroad and in Malaysia.

Prof. Tim Schulz

Head of the Department of Adipocyte Development and Nutrition | Germany

Tim J. Schulz is head of the Department of Adipocyte Development and Nutrition at the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Potsdam-Rehbrücke, Germany. He received his doctorate in biochemistry and nutritional sciences from the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Germany and subsequently completed his post-doctoral training on BMPs and brown adipose tissue in the laboratory of Dr. Yu-Hua Tseng at Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School, in Boston, USA. His present research interests include the role of aging in regenerative decline and adipocyte formation within the tissues of the musculoskeletal system.