Nobel Laureate Shinya Yamanaka will present “Recent Progress in iPS Cell Research and Application,” on June 9, 2021. This forum, which is free and open to the public, will launch Harvard’s Annual Bioethics Conference (ABC). The annual conference includes access to this forum and two additional days of programming. Learn more or register for ABC here.
In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka discovered that adult somatic cells can be reprogrammed into an embryonic-like pluripotent state by delivering transcription factors. These reprogrammed cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, have the potential to develop into every cell type in the body and are invaluable tools for disease modeling, drug screening, and cell therapy. iPS cells also provide an unprecedented opportunity for discovery in life science, and in Yamanaka’s lab today, researchers continue to use them to investigate the mechanisms for cell fate determination, the reprogramming process, and pluripotency. Yamanaka is the 2012 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.