| Meet the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Sean Palecek Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering |
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Research area Stem cell engineering. Discovering mechanisms that control human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) fates during differentiation and using this information to develop strategies to direct hPSC differentiation in an efficient, reproducible and scalable manner. Engineering cells and tissues for in vitro modeling and in vivo therapies.
What excites you about your work?
“The most exciting part of my work is using engineering concepts to advance human health using stem cells. I was at UW-Madison early on, when stem cells were first discovered here by Jamie Thompson, and to see the field go from initial discovery to human clinical trials is exciting. My role is to help bridge the gaps between early basic science discoveries and the clinicians who treat people by generating the quantity and quality of cells that will be effective in therapeutic applications.”
What do you hope to achieve?
“We want to come up with ways to turn stem cells into cell types of interest, so we can get cells that work and do what they’re supposed to and are safe. To be able to make stem cell-derived therapies accessible, we need to come up with more efficient ways to make cells at a reasonable cost and large scale. I’d love to see our cell therapies become first-line treatments someday.”
Sean’s research is two-fold: using stem cells to develop new ways of treating human disease and generating high quality cells on a large scale. WARF is thrilled to continue our collaboration with the Palecek Group.
– Andy DeTienne, WARF, Director of Licensing
Want to learn more?
Andy DeTienne, [email protected], 608.960.9857