The Center For STEM Excellence

STEM CELLS AND FERTILITY

Dr. Renee Reijo Pera
Director of the Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education
and the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Stanford University

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Tuesday, March 19th, 2013
6:00 - 7:00 pm
University Union, Ballroom Room 1

The Sacramento State STEM Scholars Lecture Series welcomes Dr. Renee Reijo Pera, Director of the Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education and the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University. Her talk titled "Stem Cells and Fertility" will address new research using stem cells as models to study human embryo and germ cell development.

Identifying how cell fate decisions are made in the embryo, in particular how programming and reprogramming occurs in the early embryo and subsequently how the germ cell lineage, which gives rise to eggs and sperm, is allocated from the somatic lineages that comprise the rest of the body, is important for our understanding of embryo development. These studies are valuable to the understanding of human reproductive failure, one of the most common health problems in men and women and a common cause of birth defects.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Reijo Pera is the George D. Smith Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University and was a Damon Runyon Fellow in Human Genetics, at the Whitehead Institute at MIT, before joining the faculty at UCSF in 1997. She was recruited to Stanford University to direct the Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education in April 2007. She has received numerous awards for her work including the American Stem Cell Research Foundation Award, Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, and American Society for Reproductive Medicine Bruce Stewart Award, and was cited by Newsweek magazine as one of twenty influential women in the USA for her work in understanding human development.

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