Ben Paylor
Ben Paylor completed a Bachelor of Medical Science at the University of Western Ontario, which included a 1-year research exchange to Umea in Northern Sweden. Following his Bachelors, he completed a 2-year Masters of Philosophy in Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Experimental Medicine program under the supervision of Dr. Fabio Rossi at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on understanding the role of tissue-resident mesenchymal progenitors in repair processes of the heart. Outside of science, Ben is an avid pianist and tennis player, as well as being very interested in the field of science communication and policy. The writer and director of several award-winning science films, Ben is also the co-founder and director of InfoShots (www.infoshots.com), a science-based animation studio that is currently producing the Stem Cell Network's StemCellShorts series. Ben is the Chair of the Trainee Communications Committee at the Stem Cell Network, sits on the National Advisory Committee of the high school outreach program StemCellTalks and is a 2012/13 Action Canada fellow.
Posts by: Ben
Early data promising for first clinical trial using human cardiac stem cells
A week of highs and lows for the global stem cell community brought with it a healthy dose of optimism for cardiac stem cell researchers. Pilot data from Dr. Roberto Bolli and colleagues’ landmark SCIPIO (Stem Cell Infusion in Patients with Ischemic CardiOmyopathy) clinical trial, published in The Lancet last week, provides much needed […]
View from the floor: ISSCR final day
The final day of the 9th annual ISSCR meeting was truly a memorable one, with several excellent talks and touching moments. An incredibly moving presentation by Charles Sabine in the morning stands out, and I fear my description will not do it justice. For many, I expect his talk was the highlight of the entire […]
View from the floor: ISSCR day 3
Shinya Yamanaka, vice president of the ISSCR, soon-to-be McEwen Centre Award for Innovation recipient, and a leader in the field of iPS cell generation, opened day three of the 2011 ISSCR conference with a presentation titled “Induction of Pluripotency by Defined Factors”. The main hall was surprisingly crowded at 9:00 am given the somewhat rowdy Junior Investigator Night […]
View from the floor: ISSCR day 2
Although elsewhere in Canada there are some very troubling consequences arising from a group not living up to their potential (I refer to the rioting hooligans and not the Canucks), the realization of potential happening here at the ISSCR couldn’t be more different. There is a great sense of excitement and buzz surrounding the wide […]
Stem cells and the modern Prometheus
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? – Paradise Lost, Milton This harrowing quote from Milton, if framed as a first-person narrative of a stem cell’s fate, paints a troubling (and highly unrecognized) perspective of the field. These same lines also […]