Held on a bi-monthly basis at the Harvard Medical School, HSCI Inter-lab Meetings are typically attended by up to 200 members of our community and consist of presentations from three different labs on a common theme. Some themes this past fall included “Cellular and Molecular Signals That Affect Self-Renewal and Differentiation” and “Embryonic Stem Cell Derivation and Biology.” The Inter-labs are specifically designed to provide junior HSCI investigators, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and newly appointed faculty the opportunity to share their most recent work with the wider HSCI community.
The January 2008 Inter-lab was focused on translational approaches to stem cell therapies. Presenters included Trista North (Children’s Hospital Boston) on the role of prostaglandin E2 in enhancing blood stem cell expansion, Rona Carroll (Brigham and Women’s Hospital) on the use of stem cells as a therapeutic delivery vehicle for malignant brain tumors, and Dario Fauza (Children’s Hospital Boston) on fetal tissue engineering for the treatment of birth defects.
The next two Inter-lab Meetings will cover “Regulatory Mechanisms in Development and Disease” and “Stem Cells and Development Biology.”