SCN scientific meeting: Day 1

It may be cold in Calgary but there’s plenty of warmth and amicable conversation at the Stem Cell Network annual meeting. Day 1 opened with an afternoon plenary featuring some impressive talks. Peter Lansdorp of the BC Cancer Agency gave an overview of his current work in epigenetics and Mickie Bhatia of McMaster University presented on his recent findings on the direct conversion of skin fibroblasts to blood cells, as was recently published in Nature. The opening talk from Jonathan Moreno of the University of Pennsylvania highlighted the current state of public policy with regard to pluripotent stem cell research, particularly in the US. This was later followed by the Till and McCulloch Lecture by the University of Alberta’s Timothy Caulfield, who spoke specifically about the what he envisions will be future challenges in policy arising from iPS research.

Other events on opening day included the Own the Stage workshop for developing presentation skills, which also featured ten lightning round research presentations from selected SCN trainee abstracts, the Career Mixer networking event, poster presentations and the opening of both the exhibit hall and the Cells I See art gallery.

Timothy Caulfield presenting the Till and McCulloch Award lecture