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Scientists talk about what they do and why they do what they do. Their motivations, their trajectory, their setbacks, their achievements. They offer their personal take on science, mentoring and the many aspects that have shaped their work and their lives. Hosted by journalist Vivien Marx. Her work has appeared in Nature journals, Science, The Economist, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal Europe and New Scientist among others. (Art: Justin Jackson)
Transcript of the sneak-peek podcast of the International Society for Stem Cell Research annual meeting 2026
Note: These podcasts are produced to be heard. If you can, please tune in. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and there’s a human editor. But a transcript may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.
Vivien
Hi and welcome to Conversations with scientists. I'm science journalist Vivien marks. Today's episode is a sneak peek of the 2026 annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/upcoming-programs/isscr-2026 ISSCR the meeting hasn't happened yet, and this is a chat about some of the things that will happen there. If you are a stem cell scientist, please stay tuned. If you are not in stem cell biology, or you are not at all a scientist, please come along for the ride. This podcast is for anyone interested in science.
The ISSCR annual meeting is in Montreal this year, from July 8 to 11th. If you haven't signed up and you want to, well, do it. And yes, of course, you could still do that all last minute, the world being what it is and budgets being what they are for now, no suitcase packing needed. We had a bundle of questions for the two co chairs of the meeting, Dr Fiona Doetsch from the University of Basel, and Dr Nozomu Yachie from the University of British Columbia, and he has a lab at the University of Osaka too. My co moderator is Dr Angela parish from Nature Communications, who has also been at Nature Cell Biology. Together, we ask about the meeting, some trends, some things patients might want to know.
We ask about science more generally, and we do a word association game. Our guests talk about how malleable the adult brain is. Also about new clinical developments. And you may have heard that the Japanese authorities have given conditional approval to two therapies based on induced pluripotent stem cells. One is for heart ailments, the other for Parkinson's. This is the first of this kind of therapy. Dr Doetsch and Dr Yachie talk about many themes, including, as Dr Doetsch puts it, in vivo veritas.
They talk about stem cell engineering, about careers in stem cell science, the role of computation and AI, and why biologists and mathematicians are welcome at this meeting, manuscript editors from across the nature journals were on the call too.
Fiona Doetsch
Hi there. Nice to meet everybody.
Vivien:
Thank you so much. People are still dialing in. We have, I always put out an invite to manuscript editors. Some people have children who are being unruly, but
Fiona Doetsch absolutely,
Vivien Children are fine. Pets are fine. Thank you so much for taking the time for this. I know it's it's probably annoying and takes you away from more important things.
Fiona Doetsch
Oh, it's great. It's actually a wonderful opportunity for us to share about the meeting and inform more people. So we really appreciate the opportunity too. There he is.
Vivien
Oh, look at that cool photo. Oh, we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about imanga, perhaps. Hi, Dr Yachie, how are you? Thank you so much for taking the time for this,
Nozumo Yachie
of course
Vivien
I want to ask about those pictures on your wall. Dr Doetsch what is that that is cool.
Fiona Doetsch
One is, oh,yes, this is a, let's see the green one. That's the stem cell niche in the adult mouse brain. And those are actually the stem cells. And then on the one beside it is a photograph. These are pictures I took when I was a student, actually, of chains of newly generated neurons migrating through the brain.
Vivien
Super cool. I know it's a podcast. People won't be able to see it, but you've described it really well. All right. Well, let's get started. This is the sneak peek of the annual meeting of the International Society for stem cell research, and there's a co moderator, Angela. You you can introduce yourself.
Angela Parrish
Hi, I'm Angela Parrish. I'm a senior editor at Nature Communications, and I've also worked at nature cell biology, and I look at manuscripts mostly on Cell Biology, metabolism, organelles, and certainly stem cells,
Vivien
all right, and everyone else, please, just keep in mind that when you speak, you should introduce yourself first say something whatever you like, about your hobbies, but also about the types of manuscripts you enjoy and the ones that you take care of. And I'll introduce the people who are the major guests here, and we'll get started on this sneak peek of the meeting. So first we have Dr Fiona Doetch, and I saw that you just got a very cool award. Well, it's in January, right? It's the Louis John Tenet prize, I think, yeah, you're at the University of Basel. So is that all correct your affiliations and all of that?
Fiona Doetsch
Yes, I'm at the University of Basel at the Biozentrum in Switzerland.
Vivien
And sorry, this is the evening for you. So sorry for invading on that. Dr. Yachie, you have a list of prizes. Oh, I've got more people to admit. Excuse me, we we've got a crowd. So Dr, Yachi, I want to ask you about manga, because your site has some very cool manga. But so you have a bundle of prizes. I saw Allen Distinguished Investigator and Nagase Grand Prize. I think of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. That sounds special, and others too. And you are, let's see you commute between the University of British Columbia, Osaka and Tokyo universities, I'm not sure,
Nozomu Yachie
Mostly between UBC and the University of Osaka. Yeah. Yeah. Like every month, like, back and forth.
Vivien
Wow, very cool. So you have two, you have two lab groups, I think
Nozomu Yachie
That's right, yeah.
Vivien
Very cool,yeah.All right. So the reason, and I mean, it doesn't really feel like summer yet, I'm freezing. It's freezing in New York right now, but in July, there is this meeting, the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. It's in Montreal, Montreal, from July 8 to the 11th, and a few people are going to get together and talk about stem cells. And I wanted to ask, how many people are you expecting, and how many talks? Numbers are always kind of fun.
Fiona Doetsch
I think we're expecting around 3500 people at the meeting. So it's a very large meeting crossing all aspects of stem cell biology, from basic research to clinical translation.
Vivien
There's lots of posters. I think, I mean, I heard some numbers, but do you have an approximate count?
Fiona Doetsch
I think right now, the latest numbers are around 1400 submitted posters. And then the number of talks, I actually don't know the final number of talks, but they're from those abstracts. They're going to be 80 selected speakers, as well as the concurrent sessions and the plenary speakers who are invited as well
Vivien
Got it and the concurrent sessions, just so people know if they can't make it for various reasons. Are there ways to tune in and for attendees? Can they listen to recordings afterwards? I know hybrid meetings are a bit hard to organize, but I'm just curious.
Fiona Doetsch
So we don't have a hybrid meeting at the moment, but I believe that the concurrent sessions are recorded and provided on demand after the meeting, so you don't have to make the really challenging choices of which talks to go to at the moment. So you could just sit in one session and and then catch up later.
Vivien
Okay, interesting. And because you're in very different time zones, just a practical question. I mean, I have this a lot with interviewees. Dr Doetsch, you're in Switzerland. Dr Yachie, you're sometimes in Japan, but you're mainly in Vancouver. How did you work that out? You co- organized the program. I mean, I'm not sure what times you met at. I'm just really curious about formalities of that. Wow.
Nozomu Yachie
I exercise well and sleep well, and sometimes I don't fix my jet lag.
Vivien
I see So time is all relative, okay, yeah,
Fiona Doetsch
I think we're very open about this. I think we realize that for putting together a meeting, you just work at fun hours, and everybody gets to interact at different times, right?
Vivien
Fabulous. Well, tell us about I mean, we can't go through the whole program unless you want to stay until very late, which is fine with me, but I'm sure it's not fine for you. But what are some of the things that you are really happy about? And oh, right, there was one thing I wanted to ask so Stem Cell Technologies as a company and is a co-sponsor. I'm not sure if they are part of developing the program or how they were involved.
Fiona Doetsch
So they've not really been involved in developing the program. They are providing a large amount of support to the annual meeting, and we were recognizing, actually, Allen Eaves and Connie Eaves, who sadly passed away recently as Lifetime Achievement contributors to the society for their enormous contributions.
Vivien
And they are with with the companies the stem cell technologies they okay.
And Connie Eaves was a professor at the University of British Columbia.
Vivien
I see, sorry about their loss, so that I see so you recognize them at the meeting, cool and important, those things.
So the meeting, it's a few people getting together to talk about stem cells. What are some things that you are particularly proud of of the types of whether it's keynotes or maybe it's a block of presentations. You can pick any topic that is dear to you or things that you are really happy about putting together for this meeting.
Nozomu Yachie
Yeah, as a scientist who has a computer computer science, computational biology background, I really appreciate that. You know, these days, as in any field, in biology, like stem cell field, is also highly integrated with AI and computational biology. And I am personally super excited about covering those talks.
Fiona Doetsch
One of the things I'm most pleased about is that we have so many first time speakers at the meeting. So we have about 80% first time speakers at the annual meeting. So one of our goals was really to try and reach out to people and bring new perspectives to present at the meeting. And so I'm thrilled that this, we were very successful at this. It's a very international set of speakers. And from my sense, I mean, we think about stem cells in the adult brain. So I really love this concept of thinking about the whole organism physiology, and how this impacts stem cells through life, interactions with the environment, and then how we can use these new technologies to explore these questions. So we really tried to capture everything from non model organisms towards clinical levels, and to bridge these themes.
Vivien
One, one thing that has come up in previous discussions with for ISSCR, and also for other meetings, is this idea of, you know, a big tent means that, for example, computational people and neuro people and cell biologists are at a meeting, but they don't, perhaps organically, move together, except maybe in the coffee line. And I hope the coffee is really good at the meeting. But how do you kind of set up the opportunities for them to interact.
Fiona Doetsch
So I think, you know, we have seen the concurrent sessions, but at the same time, we designed those sessions to have, you know, other elements in each talk. So we strategically selected speakers who are interdisciplinary, in a sense, yeah, so, so that's probably, you know, one way to explain the excitement of the conference.
I think also we're we've really tried to create more opportunities this year for people to interact. And so we have meetup hubs. We have science spotlight sessions, which are actually organized by the members themselves, and so these allow them to bring up emerging topics that are really fresh. And we are trying to have different kinds of panel discussions and even create spaces where people who might share an interest can come together and discuss these topics in a way so really trying to provide the spaces for the larger community to interact and build bridges across the world, especially at this rather fractured time. It's very important to bring people together.
Vivien
Angela, if you have any questions that you want to ask, because I have 292 or so left to go.
Angela Parrish
I think about the conference in general I have was interested in the choice to have 75% first time speakers, looking at earlier researchers, and, you know, people in the beginning of their careers. And sort of, do you is this a reflection of changes you're seeing in the field? Is this a sort of more optimistic hope of what the field can become, just just sort of in general, what are your thoughts? Because it is very interesting to see that, you know, most of the speakers, generally, are seasoned. So at a big conference like this, that is pretty cool to see that you've made it a, you know, a point that it's important. So if you could just expand a little more on that,
Nozomu Yachie
it's basically all of them. But about in addition to that, it's probably a sort of mining of a superstar from from the from the young generations. If you look at those big conferences like we tend to pick like a big shots to speak out in introduce their big science, but at the same time, we recognize lots of like emergent young scientists who are doing amazing stuff. So, you know, we want to hear more from them.
Fiona Doetsch
I think also, they tend to be more engaged with new approaches and new ideas than more seasoned investigators, maybe. So it allows us to capture, at the moment, sort of emerging topics, or sort of more technology oriented approaches that can actually shed light on fundamental biological questions. So this, this, I think, provides a really fresh perspective.
Vivien
Well, that's, that's a bold choice, and very encouraging to I also saw that you have a, I think it's called GPS career. GPS navigating your future session. Who is that for? And how is that set up?
Fiona Doetsch
So that's actually been organized by the early career committee, and so they have invited people who have had different career trajectories, who will share their experience. Sits on the panel and then really have an open discussion with the members. And each year, they organize one of these sessions on different topics, and they're always hugely successful, and really provide a great space for people to discuss their concerns, their ideas and opportunities
Vivien
I see. So they're kind of panels, but then there's a Q and A that isn't just, oh, the last two minutes of the session, we'll have some Qs.
Fiona Doetsch
Is really a lot of question answer and time provided for that
nice,
Angela Parrish
great it would probably also be really good networking opportunity for all of the people that are just, you know, even in the audience with each other. It's such an important way to get, you know, get your career moving forward,
Vivien
and hopefully, I suppose, speaking for myself, Is there coffee and cookies? But we'll see, right? If that's there too,
Fiona Doetsch
we're actually having a big all attendee reception this year, which I'm excited about too. So hopefully there'll be lots of treats there as well.
Vivien
Wow, treats are good. Oh, that's nice, all right. So more incentive for people to network and also to snack. So we'll take a little break and do the word game. We do this on these sneak peeks. It's a game where we present you with a word pair. Actually, in one case, we have a trio, but it's a word pair. You pick one, and then we move on, and we can return to some of those later. It's an homage to a French journalist called Bernard Pivot, who used this in his show in French television for many, many years. Stephen Colbert uses it, and it all kind of goes back to Marcel Proust, who used a questionnaire in one of his novels. So I don't have a drum roll, so I'll just do it with my hands for now. Angela, are you ready?
Angela Parrish
Yep, I'm ready.
Vivien
Okay. Nozomu and Fiona, are you ready? So for example, we'll ask cats or dogs. And we could start with that cats or dogs, you pick one, and then we move on to the next one also,
okay,
Nozomu Yachie
Let's try.
Vivien
It's fine. And if you don't want to answer, or if you think, if there's something to say about it, or you don't want you can just say pass. It's not a, you know, a strict game show. It's a very fluid kind of open show. So, all right, so cats or dogs?
Angela Parrish
No right answer, depending on
Fiona Doetsch
Cats
Nozomu Yachie
Dogs
Vivien
Okay,
I'll just do the next one, and then we can switch off, Angela.
Angela
Sounds good,
Vivien
Big conferences or small conferences,
Fiona Doetsch
Both for very different reasons. So I think, are we supposed to expand? Are we just,
Vivien
it's fine, we can expand later. For now, I think it's just kind of like scrunching a lot of a lot into this one little session.
Nozomu Yachie
sorry, sorry. Are we supposed to pick one, or can we say both?
Vivien
As I said, the rules are pretty fluid, but if you want to pick both, that's fine. So big conferences or small conferences,
Nozomu Yachie
Big
Vivien
Poster or talk
Fiona Doetsch
Poster for interactions
Nozomu Yachie
Talks,
Vivien
let's see we had one. Oh yes, this one organoids or gastruloids.
Nozomu Yachie
Those are the same thing.
Vivien
Oh, no, are they?
Nozomu Yachie
Well, one, I guess, is is more for organs, and the other is more for early development. Or am I it could be totally fine.
They are both modeling life systems using stem cells.
Vivien
okay,
Angela Parrish
Okay, here's one. This might be hard, endoderm, mesoderm or ectoderm.
Fiona Doetsch
Obviously, ectoderm,
Angela Parrish
that's what I thought.
Naomi Yachie
All of them,
Angela Parrish
yeah, without all of them, things don't really come together. That's true.
VivienI see interesting. See, we weren't sure how you would react to this, but okay, what was the other one? Oh, yes. PhD, four years, or as long as it takes?
Fiona Doetsch
four years. Yeah, definitely not as long as it takes.
Nozomu Yachie
I don't know. I have mixed feeling about this.
Vivien
That's fine. Mixed feelings are fine.
Angela Parrish
Let's see. Oh, okay, this one's interesting, too, stem cell or stem cell niche, They're so tied together.
Vivien
How about pluripotency or totipotency?
Fiona Doetsch
Totipotency
Nozomu Yachie
Totipotency,
Vivien
Yes, superb. We have more, but we can also call it the end of this game. But thank you very much for playing along. I appreciate that, and I maybe this gave people also time to ask questions. I don't see any raised hands as of yet. So we can keep chatting about those other many questions that we have. I was wondering about some of the answers, and I don't know if you want to talk about any of those.
I guess the thing is, really, when you pick which model you're going to use, how do you decide and how do you recommend others decide your trainees, but maybe colleagues, right? I mean, do you tell them this is the way to go? Or do you say, No, I think your thoughts on this are welcome stem cell model. I mean.
Nozomu Yachie
So I'm a type of researcher who wouldn't pick any specific model, but try to grasp the overall structure or concept of diverse models. And I started talking about this these days. So we are entering the AI era now, and we know the success of generative AI systems, which creates movies or which creates, you know, photographs and so on so forth. And the stem cell is pretty much like that. It's a generative machine and which generates diverse organs in the body. And these are core principles encoded in the genome. So genome, in a sense, is a foundation model. So if you kind of started thinking about this kind of stuff. Like, everything is important, but more important thing is that if you look at different models, there are lots of commonalities, like a common principles and rules, and you know, we always chat, you know those commonalities, and this is especially important in the stem cell field. People are studying fly people are studying human stem cells, but we often find the common principles, and that's the excitement that we always have in this community.
Vivien
the genome is foundational model. Oh, those are fighting words for some okay, but cool.
Angela Parrish
So this is a kind of out there question, but then, so, if that's true, and you can really find these underlying principles across these diverse models, and put it all into its you know, whatever computer system do you think you could then do all of the experiments you would need to do in the computer if you had all of the information and enough of this foundational information connecting them, right? These, these true principles from different models. I think,
Nozomu Parrish
yeah, I think that's quite possible, and that's what us. You know, some of us are envisioning these days, including myself, the current generative AI is more like a black box. So we feed information and we generate information, but we don't know that. You know underlining principle. You know, biology has circuits encoded in the genome, and by feeding lots of data in biology to AI system, and somehow, you know, we need a little more effort from computer science side, we may be able to find like the principles encoded, and therefore we may be able to simulate the human body in a computer.
Fiona Doetsch
I think that I love in vivo, in vivo veritas. That's a complimentary perspective here. And I think it's fascinating how different people resonate at different scales. So some people are really interested in gene regulatory networks. Some be really interested in cell cell communication, or the level of organs or the level of the whole body.
And so for me, when I talk with people, I try and find what scale that they like to work at and and think at and resonate with and then come up with a question on those levels. And I think the exciting part now is really this idea of communication across not only organs, but within tissues, and how these intersect, and how you can have so many inputs coming together and being sensed by individual cells and how they respond to these signals. So I feel that we have so many surprises still to discover looking at these different organs in vivo as well. So the two approaches are very complementary, but we will always go and try and visualize and see what's going on
Vivien
when, when you made the finding that I'm just going to simplify here, because my brain can't do hard stuff, that neurons aren't just in the brain, aren't just they're there and they don't change. That there's actually a lot more plasticity in the brain than I guess a lot of people thought, maybe even colleagues of yours. How does that unfold? Sort of from that first moment when you have this insight and observation and measurements where you found something that really goes against perhaps some of the findings that many. Others have had, also the big shots that you've mentioned, who are around, of course,
Fiona Doetsch
It's a really thrilling moment. I think there's nothing like looking down a microscope and seeing something that nobody has seen before, and then you just have to go with it and find more evidence to support your ideas, even if it's counterintuitive. And then you just design new experiments, and you build up all of these lines of evidence and and then you keep looking for these big findings, or let's say, just conceptual advances. And what does this mean? So for example, we discovered a long time ago, actually, that the stem cells were a kind of glial cell, which was a big surprise, because neurons and glial were thought to come from different from different lineages and and that was a tough initial path, but in the end, it's really it's transformed our understanding of how the brain can maintain plasticity through life.
And I think another really key finding now is this idea that we have different sets of stem cells in the brain, and perhaps in the body that respond to different signals, and at least in the brain. Now if you can trigger these different stem cells, it provides a whole new kind of plasticity, so different physiological states can switch on specific sets of stem cells to generate rare types of neurons that may be important, for example, for in pregnancy, for a mother to recognize her own offspring. So what are the different states that can do this? So things are a lot more specified than we used to think, but also more plastic.
Vivien
That's fascinating and interesting. The part about pregnancy, I know you've worked on so I know that this is an exciting time in stem cell science, because of some of the approvals of the Japanese authorities for certain types of stem cell therapies. And we don't want to hype anything, but in terms of how you feel about the field, I mean, there is a real clinical reality that is setting the stage for future developments.
Fiona Doetsch
Yes, absolutely. I think this is one of the exciting moments in the field is how these basic discoveries have now led all the way to clinical translation. And I think the society is also very engaged in promoting guidelines that support this appropriately public discussion, ethics, perspectives, but also how. And I think at the meeting there are even some sessions really talking about how you go from basic science to translation, how do you talk with the industry? How do you do or talk to regulatory groups? So this is as important as all of the other aspects. So it is a transformative moment in the field where hopefully we can eventually really help heal damaged tissues.
Vivien
For basically a story about the 20 year birthday of induced pluripotent stem cells. I had the great privilege to chat with Shinya Yamanaka recently, and what was interesting when I asked him about that moment, that translation, and it didn't go into much detail, but I guess it's very hard to make stem cells ready for clinical application. Stem cells don't one scientist has said to me, once they don't behave. There are, there are many ways that they differentiate. How do you deal with that in the lab? And I guess computationally, I don't know how you show that that some stem cells are like, I'm done differentiating. I'm not going to go further. That's just who I am.
Nozomu Yachie
Yeah. So in my lab, we recently developed a new technology to deconvolute stem cell heterogeneity. And we, you know in the field is aware of the different stem cell line behave differently, or even within the same stem cell line, specific clone behave differently.
And recently, my lab developed a technology to isolate specific clone which has a specific like a fate propensity. And then start looking at the genomics, epigenomics, inside those cells, and we started seeing sort of epigenetic characteristics in those clones. So reprogramming might not be perfect yet, and therefore creating heterogeneity, and those clones behave differently. But having those like the view of heterogeneity, we may be able to in the future, also regulate
and control those, those heterogeneity and those those cells are basically genetically identical, right? In some cases, they're just, yeah, we think they are genetically identical, but still have different propensities.
Vivien
Ouch, okay, okay.
Fiona Doetsch
I mean, I think that there are amazing technologies that are being developed now, but I think it's not just about profiling the cells. I think one has to test the functions of these cells to see how differentiated they are. So sometimes this involves using more complex in vitro models or in vivo models to really assess how differentiated the cell is. Have they adopted all of the mature characteristics.
Vivien
I mean, I'm sure that you know this isn't your your realm, but I do notice that there are stem cell clinics that offer and promise all kinds of things in the United States, in Europe, in Asia, in many countries. And if, if you talk to people who have hopes about that. You know, obviously they maybe have relatives who have had strokes, have neurodegenerative disease, or they just really kind of interested in this kind of thing for various types of illnesses. What do you say to people who are like, well, that website looks kind of promising. Should we try it? Should we go there to Country X and do this or not.
Fiona Doetsch
And I think a lot is about the providing patients or with information and accurate information. And so through the society, the ISSCR does have a website for patients https://www.isscr.org/patients to go to and understand the different terms to understand what's viable, what's not viable, so they can make their own decisions. And I think a big effort at the society is also to try and advocate against these unproven stem cell therapies, because they damage the field as well as people. So it's a really important topic, and just speaking with people, making sure that they're informed, is a key part of this.
Vivien
I saw that you have a patient speaking at the let's see our former patient, I guess she's she had an islet cell transplant, I think 20 years ago, if I'm understanding correctly, that's pretty cool. So you have patients also who are speaking at the conference and presenting, not just kind of present at the conference
Fionna Doetsch
absolutely. And I think this is one of the most inspiring aspects of the meeting, is having either patients themselves or patient advocates talking in a plenary session. And so I think in our clinical session, we have not just the patient who is talking, but also we have people who are really at the forefront of clinical trials or of developing new strategies to try and address transplant issues and using genome editing to really solve difficult diseases. So so putting these all together, I think, will help people understand and be inspired to also really continue research,
Vivien
yeah, very cool. Let me just check to make sure there are no questions. Are there no, am I seeing anybody? No. Do you think that the engineering aspects of sort of stem cell engineering, the different types of gene editing, is that an area that is very happening right now. Or do you think it's kind of, you know, steady, or is there, have there been big spikes in activity, the types of submissions that you see? You probably have a good sense of what types of trends there are, let's say engineering in certain ways. It can be CRISPR or other types of gene editing.
Nozomu Yachie
Yeah, it's happening very well, and like engineering is important. We need to reverse engineer our object to understand what it is. And also, genome editing has lots of therapeutic potential. You can fix, correct the mutation, and then use that stem cell reagent for therapy. I wouldn't create any hype on this, but that's that's the potential. And lots of researchers are working on this, right. And I think you have presentations on this, if I saw correctly, cool. So somebody who wants to, for example, dabble in this, or is interested in this can find people to talk to. It's not like you’re absolutely, absolutely so we will have Feng Zhang. I'm not sure if he's going to talk about genome editing, but yeah, he does lots of interesting
stuff.
Vivien
Yeah, unlikely that he won't talk about genome editing, right?
Nozomu Yachie
We also, I think, have lots of different talks on different aspects of engineering, biology and new approaches in vitro to model some of these more complex in vivo niches. So I think this is another aspect of engineering that's really exciting at the moment in the field,
Angela Parrish
given that do you, do you foresee, or maybe you want to predict any unexpected stem cell therapies or uses in the future. Just, uh, I don't know, I think no, just just curious, like, is there some one type of stem cell or one type of organ that's like, apart from the, I think the kind of you. Ones, right? I think pancreas is clear. For neurodegeneration is clear, but sort of anything particularly interesting or strange or that you would like to see, that you would like to see people move towards. I'm just curious.
Nozomu Yachie
So stem cell has the superpower of becoming, you know, many different types of cells. But engineering stem cell could be a leapfrog, because we can, we have the potential of augment the function of stem cell and use them for, you know, diverse applications. So, yeah, like a genome editing stem cell and augment the function could be a sort of crazy future.
Vivien
I mean, the idea, of course, of regeneration and rejuvenation is very compelling, right? If you could say, Okay, this part of my body isn't working as great as I would like, or can it be rejuvenated? I mean, that is very promising and also problematic, probably, but I think it is fascinating, too, that there's the potential for that.
FIona Doetsch
Yes, I think also that's one of the exciting areas of looking at non model organisms who do have this amazing regenerative capacity. So what are the limits in humans or mammals, and how are these transcended in these other species? And what can we learn? And often, these are very different pathways that are used,
Vivien
maybe there are limb regeneration or things like that,
Fiona Doetsch
exactly. Yeah, yeah. So there are beautiful studies across many organisms, from planaria to, you know, axolotls and all different kinds of animals that we haven't even explored yet. So I think this can really bring surprises that actually can transform the field as well.
Vivien
Yeah, they can do things that we can't, which is perhaps humbling and important for us to have that moment. Sometimes I it's it's kind of amazing how those, I guess, those surprises happen in labs. The other thing that I hear about from scientists is that working with stem cells, actually working with them in the lab. What is challenging is that they are so diverse and they they don't actually, even though one can think that one has something in the dish, maybe they're not quite what you think they are. In terms of state, cell state. Do you have recommendations when people are intrigued, like, say, PhD students, who's starting out with stem cells and is frustrated by the fact that it's, it's a, you know, Tuesday, the experiment might go differently than than Thursday.
Fiona Doetsch
I think the unexpected is the best. So just embrace the unknown and where things science takes you. They are tricky. I think that they but if we look at them and understand them, we can understand more about them. So, yeah, I would just argue, go where science takes you, and think about it broadly.
Vivien
And they might build something that is an AI based agent model of some kind, and their systems might actually offer some surprises too. I imagine there's kind of an interaction between wet lab and in silico lab there too, right?
Nozomu Yachie
Yeah, those struggles are always good. You know, you face a struggle and try to be creative. I always like the story of Shinya Yamanaka. Discover those like a transcription factor combination, like they are testing one transcription factor, one by one, each didn't work, and then two combinations, one by one didn't work. Three combination. Now it's a combinatorial explosion. And Kazu Takahashi, like he put all the transcription factors, throw them in, you know, one night, and then found the IPS, and then they started removing one transcription factor each to characterize which is unnecessary. And then, you know, identify those, like Apple transcription factors. So sometimes you start doing hard experiment and get inspired some crazy idea, and it works. So
Vivien
yes, I asked them a little bit about that. I guess they were surprised, for instance, that NANOG wasn't as influential as they thought it might end up being. So I guess you have to kind of keep an open mind about things, because you're expecting certain things, but they actually don't. Don't come to pass. That's hard to teach. If you're a PhD student or your postdoc comes with their lab notebook. Shinya Yamanaka explained that when Kazu came to him with the notebook, then he was skeptical and he asked for the. Re experiment to be done a few times, but then I think they started to believe so I guess it's okay to be skeptical, a little bit
Fiona Doetsch
very important to be skeptical as well.
Nozomu Yachie
Yeah, I have lots of skeptical students in my lab about their own results, like they're making findings, and then they have to right?
Angela Parrish
I mean, truly, I think no, PhD student doesn't have that moment where someone replicates their work and it's like, Oh, good, okay, it worked. It's true. What I found is true. I think everyone has that. Like, yes, I did it. Someone else can do this as that's just part of the process. A little bit is also becoming more confident in what you can provide, like what you can show is there, I don't know.
Vivien
Internationally, are there good job outlooks for people in stem cell science? I mean, I assume that the clinical approvals in Japan are going to kind of send all sorts of effects across the field. And do you feel like that is important? And then I imagine also that basic researchers are like awesome clinical colleagues, we love you. But I'm actually personally interested in something very much more fundamental. So is there also maybe a tension that arises because there's a lot of clinical opportunity, but maybe not a lot of basic research. I'm just curious about the atmospheric things that you've seen and the submissions to you, but what you expect for discussions at the meeting?
Fiona Doetsch
I mean, I think one of the amazing things about the stem cell field is it does have this breadth and and that you can go in many different directions and so and move from basic science to translation, if you want to, but you can also be engaged on different levels. Think about things from a more ethics perspective, or become more involved in advocacy, in writing about science and doing science. So I think there's so many facets to stem cell biology that there is space for everybody. Of course, there's competition or tensions between things, but if by working together and appreciating these different dimensions, I think the field can really move forward much faster.
Vivien
So job hunters are welcome at the meeting, but also that they're probably going to find out about some new things, as well as sort of the established stem cell science, but also kind of these new areas, also interactions with AI, or interactions with other types of emerging areas. And maybe it isn't a stem cell biology department that will ultimately hire them. Are you both in? What are the names of your departments? Again, I looked that up, but I was wondering. I don't think stem cell is in the
Nozomu Yachie
No, I'm at the School of Biomedical Engineering,
Fiona Doetsch
and I'm in the Biozentrum, the Bio-Center, where it's a very interdisciplinary group of scientists.
Vivien
Yeah,
I see. So that might be common, too.Maybe this.
This is Shuangshuang from the ISSCR team and the scientific programs manager. I want to put a plug here, also on the special partnership we're doing this year with Canada's stem cell network. It is a global workforce development we will have a concurrent session at the meeting. It will be highly interactive, potentially some hands on experience as well, to gather input from the training sound opportunities and challenges they are facing for career development.
Vivien
Oh, I see So is that the one on one sessions that I think you also have where people can go,
Shuanshung Du
Ah, it's not. It's not,yeah, it's not the same. This is a special, special initiative of collaboration between stem cell network, the Canadian stem cell society, as well as ISSCR, they will actually have a meeting at the ISSCR annual meeting, and then at the TMM meeting later in the year. The idea is really to gather input from global community on what are the challenges and opportunities for trainees, for their career development.
Vivien
Cool, and TMM stands for?
Shuangshuang Du
that's, that's the Canadian stem cell society's annual meeting, right?
Vivien
And so the one on one meetings where people can go, I think it sounds like it's also about spinning out and interacting with people and getting kind of input on pharma or collaboration with companies, is that right? Fiona, you can tell me
Fiona Doetsch
yeah, yeah, there are all of the so you have the one on one opportunities. You have these more hubs, science hubs where people are scientific hubs, where people can come together. They're actually this year, one thing we really are excited about. Is we've created a large space with tables where people can really meet and talk to each other, because at some meetings, it's been hard to find just physical space to meet. So it's kind of like a library where you're allowed to talk, you're encouraged to talk and meet. So really trying to provide actual physical places there,
Vivien
yes, of course, the seating arrangements, or hopefully near a electrical outlet where you can charge your your devices and all of that. They're often, pretty rare to come by. I've learned that you have to sit on the floor near an electrical outlet. That's usually where conversations happen. Oh, and I see TMM is the Til & McCulloch Meetings meetings I see, so that's the Canadian one. So that's one for people to keep an eye on.
I can put a link to that. https://stemcellnetwork.ca/tmm/till-mcculloch-meetings/
Let me just check again. If anybody has any questions, we can keep you busy. But I know that you have other things to do than talk to editors with nothing to do. I'm speaking for myself here. I'm sure Angela has some things to do. Does anyone have any questions they want to ask, any things they want to say? If not, we'll give our guests a closing moment. All set. All good. I have more questions, but we'll have that. Oh yes, two year old, somebody's two year old is running around. All good. Thank you. So Fiona and Nozumu. Do you have any closing thoughts? Oh, right, I forgot to ask you about the manga. Yes, your art on your website is wonderful.
Angela Parrish
definitely go, go check out his website? It's very
Nozomu Yachie
Thank you very much. I hired somebody. Oh, yeah, she, she's a great artist, I don't know if you know anime called spy family. And then she was, she was a part of the team in Spy Family movie. I basically had head-hunted him, hunted her on X, and I started talking to her, like, yeah, anyways,
Vivien
it's really cool. It is very cool. It has a very nice website,
interesting vibe,
Angela Parrish
yes, different than most scientific lab websites you find, definitely true.
Nozomu Yachie
So, so closing comment, you know, I probably go brief, and then maybe Fiona can do more. So as I said in the very beginning, stem cell is sort of the hub of biology. I would say it generates many things. And I believe stem cell biology is the hub of biology, too. And I hope that the stem cells generate diverse systems and and, you know, we can think in that way, this way, this in in the stem cell community, we have lots of people thinking about those like the generation of diverse systems. And outside of the stem cell field, there are the other conferences with specialized topic, and we always want to link together. So I really hope that this conference will be the hub of engaging many people from diverse areas, and then think about, what is the central system.
So even if you're, if you're a math person or a computational person, but certainly a math person and you can, you're welcome. It's not because you don't know. I'm pretty sure they will find very interesting problem in our conference.
Fiona Doetsch
And actually we even this year, I forgot to mention this earlier, we have mathematical and theoretical speakers, so mathematical modeling and theoretical biology, because I think this is a really key part of understanding different forces in in stem cell biology. So, so we're already trying to try in the mathematicians to the meeting
Vivien
Theory allowed. Math allowed, and, of course, biology allowed. Well, lovely. Thank you so much for taking the time for this. And thank you everyone who's been tuned in even those let's see. One colleague has a two year old running around singing Frozen which I probably think will have some copyright issues if we let the child sing. So we won't do that. But thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you Dr Deutsch and Dr Yachie. Thank you Angela, for co- moderating. Thank you everyone for tuning in.
Fiona Doetsch
Thank you, Vivien,
Nozomu Yachie
yes. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Fona Doetsch
We look forward to seeing you soon.
Vivien
And that was conversations with scientists. Today's episode was a sneak peek of the upcoming meeting of the International Society for stem cell research isscr. Today's guests were the two Program Chairs of the meeting, Dr Fiona Doetsch from the University of Basel and Dr Nozomu Yachie from the University of British Columbia, who also has a lab at University of Osaka.
Thank you to them, of course. Also to Kym Kilbourne, who helped set up this podcast. She is Director of Media and Strategic Communications at ISSCR, Dr Shuangshuang Du from ISSCR was in the podcast too. Today's co-host was Dr Angela Parrish from Nature Communications.
The music in this podcast is Rex Banner. Get this party started. Danny Shields, Now that we're here and Raw by Nonsense, all licensed from artlist.io .
And I just wanted to say, because there's confusion about these things, sometimes nobody paid to be in this podcast. And the International Society for stem cell research didn't pay for this podcast. This is independent journalism that I produce in my living room. You can find this podcast on streaming platforms and on Youtube in the channel Convos with scientists. I'm Vivien Marx, thanks for listening.