3:30 - 5:30pm

SESSION 2 - Break-out Sessions at the Tudor Campus Center

Workshops:

Undergraduate level (COMPASS and Bridges) in the Trojan Grand Ballroom, Host: Louise Menendez, PhD

• • Connecting STEM identity to home (Disha Chauhan, EdD and Louise Mendendez, PhD, USC)

  • Communicating science to the public (Cristy Lytal, USC)

  • Applying to graduate school (Mark Frey, PhD, CHLA)

  • Searching for entry level biotech jobs (René Hubert, PhD, Amgen)

  • Working for non-profits (Arely Briseño, USC)

Graduate level (MS and PhD trainees in Bridge and EDUC4) in the Franklin Room (Rm 350), Co-Hosts: Raana Mogharrab* and Manuel Santana*

• College-level academic positions (Manuel Santana*, PCC

• Surviving and Thriving in Grad School for Industry Careers (Elisabeth Rutledge, PhD, Amgen) 

• Finding your best fit in biotech (Shyam Patel, PhD, CIRM)

• Industry positions - what's out there? (Kyle Sylakowski, PhD*, Thermo)

Postdocs and Clinical Fellows (EDUC4), in the Forum Room (Rm 450), 

Host: Alessandra Rodriguez y Baena*

• Navigating a Career in Academia (Gage Crump, PhD, USC)

• Balancing an academic and biotech career (Justin Ichida, PhD, USC/Biomarin)

• Meeting the Needs of the Biotech Industries (Wendie Johnston, PhD, Lab Director, Pasadena Bio)

• Building professional skills in biotech (Bryce Carey, Vertex)

(4:30 - 6:00pm: Program Director/Coordinators/Administrators meeting, location: South Building, check your invite!)

6pm: Dinner and Music at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County!  🦕🦣🐋

Networking tables:

• How To Navigate the Ups and Downs of Academic Life (hosted by Gage Crump, PhD)

• Things I Wish I Had Known Before Graduate School (hosted by Mark Frey, PhD and Arely Briseño, MPH)

• Meet Shyam Patel, Senior Director of Business Development & Alliance Management at CIRM

• Let’s talk about incubators! (hosted by Wendie and Rich Johnston, Pasadena Bio Collective)

• Meet Denise Theresa de Villa (Policy Management, ISSCR)

• Stem Cell Metabolism in Disease and Cancer (hosted by Onurkan Karabulut, Berkeley City College)

• Challenges navigating the American system for international students (hosted by Robert Lu, UC Berkeley)

10:00 - Noon

POSTER SESSION 1 - Town and Gown Ballroom, link to MAP

POSTER numbers 1-120 

(remove posters promptly so presenters can install for evening POSTER SESSION 2)

SPECIAL TABLE - National Marrow Donor Program - Town and Gown Patio

Learn about NMDP efforts and maybe you could Be the Match! (hosted by Katherine Lopez, Member Recruitment Coordinator, Member, Donor & Product Operations (MDPO) Southern California Territory)

Noon - Box Lunch - Pick up at Town and Gown Patio

Informal lunch discussion, outdoor picnic tables, Campus center courtyard (Purple!)

• Building professional skills for the workplace (hosted by Bryce Carey, Vertex and Louise Menendez USC)

1:00 - 3pm 

SESSION 3 - Neuroscience focus, Trojan Grand Ballroom, Session Chair: Dennis Clegg, PhD (UCSB)

Plenary Presentations (Faculty and trainees)

1:00-1:25 Patient advocate: Kristin MacDonald, Second Vision, L.A. -Second Vision, a light at the end of the tunnel

1:25-1:45 FACULTY SPEAKER: Kenneth S. Kosik, MA, MD (UCSB) - Physiology of Human Brain Organoids

1:45 -2:00   Trainee Talk: Sushma Kalmodia (CHLA) - BEST1 gene editing to restores genotype and phenotype in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived Best vitelliform macular dystrophy model [#201]

2:00-2:15 Trainee Talk: Marcella Birtele (USC) - Non canonical function of SYNGAP1 in human neural development  [#180]

2:15-2:30 Trainee Talk: Sydney Prange (UCI) - Dendrite Injury, but not axon injury, induces neuroprotection in Drosophila models of neurodegenerative disease [#217] 

2:30-3:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Aileen Anderson, PhD (UC Irvine) - The Path to Cell Therapies for Spinal Cord Injury

3:00 - 3:30pm Refreshment Break

3:30 - 5:45pm 

SESSION 4 - Gene therapy focus, Trojan Grand Ballroom, Session Chair: Andy McMahon, PhD (USC/Caltech)

Plenary Presentations (Faculty and trainees)

3:30-3:50 Patient Advocate: Kim Cade, Director, Sister's Hope Foundation - Living with ALSP - A Family’s Perspective

3:50-4:10 FACULTY SPEAKER: Ritchie Ho, PhD (Cedars Sinai) - Targeting repeat expansion disease using CRISPR interference gene therapy

4:10-4:25 Trainee Talk: Franco Felix (Stanford)  - GRHL2 and AP2A Transcription Factors Coordinate Surface Ectoderm Development in Pluripotent Stem Cell Derived Induced Skin Composites [#185]

4:25-4:40 Trainee Talk: Robert Lu (UC Berkeley) - Long-read sequencing enables high-resolution study of telomere biology in cancers engaging in Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres [#207]

4:40-4:55 Trainee Talk: Zahir Shah (City of Hope) - iPSC-derived anti-PSCA CAR macrophages possess potent antitumor activity against  pancreatic cancer [#228]

4:55-5:15 FACULTY SPEAKER: Paula Cannon, PhD (USC) - Reprogramming human B cells with custom antibodies

5:15-5:45 KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Donald B. Kohn, MD (UCLA) - Hematopoietic Stem Cell Gene Therapy

RECORDED VIDEOS FOR TALKS from SESSIONS 3 and 4

6pm - 8pm

POSTER SESSION 2, Town and Gown Ballroom, link to MAP 

POSTER numbers 121-256

RECEPTION

9am - 10am

SESSION 5: Mini Break-outs - Workshops on Cells, Tissues, Organs, DMC classrooms, link to MAP

NOTE: Mini Break-out sessions are in smaller classrooms with limited capacity, if your first choice is full, please attend your second choice!

5.1 Hematopoiesis, HOST: Rong Lu (USC) - DMC 101 

• Silvia Vicenzi (UCSD) - Wnt pathway receptors as novel biomarkers for the identification and characterization of multiple myeloma cancer stem-like cells [#242]

• Aiman Ayesha (SJSU) - Unveiling the Role of the GPR25/GPR25LG Axis in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Trafficking and Beyond: Implications for Immune Regulation and Therapeutics [#57]

• Kenneth Nguyen (USC) - Marker Genes Distinguish Two Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Differentiation Pathways that Give Rise to Monocytes [#33]

5.2 Cancer and Cancer Stem Cells, HOST: Mark LaBarge (City of Hope) - DMC 102

• Mark LaBarge (City of Hope) - Targeting cancer cells of origin

• Nahal Azimi (Sanford-Burnham Prebys) - MULTIMODAL INVESTIGATION OF PROGNOSTIC “STEMNESS” ATTRIBUTES IN AML [#178]

• Vi Dang (UC Irvine) - Sorting to enrich for chemotherapeutic-resistant glioma cells based on unique membrane properties [#185]

• Carlos Galván (UCLA) - Defining metabolic flexibility in hair follicle stem cell induced squamous cell carcinoma [#187]

5.3 Nervous System 1, HOST: Michael Bonaguidi (USC) - DMC 150

• Michael Bonaguidi (USC) - Advancing Brain Regeneration from Discovery to the Clinic

• Razieh Jaberi (UCR) - Modeling Traumatic Brain Injury in NSCs [#199]

• Nicholas Hayes (CSUSM) Identifying Drivers of Neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients using Fibroblast-Derived Induced Neurons [#99]

• Emily Xu (UC Davis) - Characterization of an Autism-Associated Gene KMT2E in Zebrafish [#55]

5.4 Epithelia- Liver/Gut/Lung, HOST: Linda Sher (USC/CHLA) - DMC 151

• Shally Saini (UCSC) - Compartment-dependent Lung Fibroblast Responses to Influenza Virus Infection in Mouse and Lung Organoid Models [#222]

• Courtney Stockman (Stanford) - DECIPHERING Β-CATENIN'S ROLE IN DISTAL LUNG ENDOTHELIAL DYNAMICS: HOMEOSTASIS, INJURY, AND REGENERATION [#234]

• Michell Tham (PCC) - Establishing a Human Organoid Model of the Gut and Enteric Nervous System to Dissect Mechanisms of Autism-associated Gut Dysfunction [#163]

5.5 Cardiovascular System, HOST: Ellen Lien (USC/CHLA) DMC 152

• Subir Kapuria (CHLA) - Heterogeneous cardiomyocytes show differential regulation of development and metabolic activities (not confirmed) [#202]

• Katya Marchetti (Sanford Burnham Prebys)- IDENTIFYING MOLECULAR MECHANISMS UNDERLYING HLHS – THE ROLES OF ETS FAMILY TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS [#208]

• Tahmina Samad (Stanford) - Metabolic derrangement in SV [#223]

5.6 Nervous System 2, HOST: Dhruv Sareen (Cedars Sinai)- DMC 156

• Brijesh Singh (Cedars Sinai) - Targeting EZH1/2, epigenetic gatekeepers of neuronal development and maturation as a strategy to enhance iPSC models of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.[#230]

• Priscilla Ngo (CSUSM) - EXPLORING LIPID DROPLET LOAD AND ENHANCING SYNAPTIC DENSITY IN iPSC-DERIVED NEURONS [#129]

• Yaneth Perez (UCLA) - Identifying Aberrant Cellular Phenotypes in Neural Cultures derived from Arboleda-Tham Syndrome IPSCs using AI-assisted Immunofluorescence [#38]

5.7 Musculoskeletal, HOST: Melissa Spencer (UCLA) - DMC 205

• Kanwalpreet Kaur Bajwa (CSUCI) - In Vitro Assessment of Chemical Toxicity on Osteogenic Differentiation Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells [#58]

• Cindy Chu (SFSU) - Role of Nitric Oxide in Somite Segmentation (or new section on early development) [#11]

• Amy Zhu (UCSB) - The 3D mechanical environment directs osteogenesis through histone demethylases KDM4B and KDM6B [#51]

5.8 Germ Cells and Early Development, HOST: Kenisha Puckett* (Stanford) - DMC 207

• Kenisha Puckett (Stanford) Trophoblast Stem Cells: Building the Human Placenta Blueprint [#218]

• Alka Gupta (UC Santa Cruz) Role of sperm small RNAs in paternal intergenerational epigenetic inheritance.[#191]

• Azra Cruz (UCLA) - Immunohistochemical Characterization of In Vivo Mouse Germline Development from Late-Stage Primordial Germ Cells to Prepubertal Oocytes [#12]

• Benjamin Lee (SFSU) - Distinct Effects of Wntless on WNT1 and WNT3A Signaling: A Difference in Binding Affinity [#27]

10:00 - 10:30am Refreshment Break, DMC courtyard

10:30- Noon

SESSION 6: Mini Break-outs - Workshops on technology, DMC classrooms, link to MAP

NOTE: Mini Break-out sessions are in smaller classrooms with limited capacity, if your first choice is full, please attend your second choice!

6.1 Cell Therapy, HOST: Peter Cho (Cedars Sinai) - DMC 101

• Kristen Chan (SFSU) - Developing Designer Adipocytes as a First-in-Class Treatment for Osteoarthritis [#70]

• Sumedha Kumari (City College of San Francisco) - EX VIVO EXPANSION OF HEMATOPOIETIC STEM CELLS [#107]

• Gabriella Cox (CSUN) -  Evaluating the Role of Endothelial Cells in hPSC-Derived Somite and Muscle Specification [#75]

• Adrian Mora (Loma Linda University School of Medicine) - Transcriptomic Insights into Neonatal Islet-1+ Cardiovascular Stem Cell-Mediated Repair in the Sheep Model of Myocardial Infarction [#127]

6.2 Brain Organoids, HOST: Giorgia Quadrato (USC) - DMC 102 

• Ryan Hoffman (UCSC) - Improved Cerebral Organoid Specification Using a Scalable Hydrogel Application and Physiological Glucose Culturing [#196]

• Thomas Li (UC Berkeley) -  Altered differentiation and astrocyte reactivity in a human brain organoid model of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex [#203]

• Jacqueline Do (CSULB) - Optimizing and Investigating CHIR Dosage and APOE Genotypes in Brain CPEC Organoids Development: Towards Enhanced Models for Alzheimer's Disease Research [#79]

• Negian Shalmani (CSUN) - Modeling Dup15q syndrome using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived brain organoids [#153]

6.3 Translational Immunotherapy, HOST: Saul Priceman (City of Hope) - DMC 150

• Saul Priceman (City of Hope) - Engineering Immunity for Solid Tumors

• Cynthia Benitez (CSULB) - Minimally invasive, serial cerebrospinal fluid collection to monitor neuroinflammation after mild traumatic brain injury [#61]

• Zeina Elrachid (CSULB) - Intracellular C1q as a Potential Mediator of Microglial Behavior [#82]

• Tommy Luong (SFSU) - Mediating the Effects of Reactive Enteric Glia-Derived Cytokines via CRISPR-Cas9 [#113]

• Nathan Martinez (CSUCI) - Development of Nanobody-Based Therapy for the Specific Targeting of Osteosarcoma [#122]

• Sydney Gillette (UCSD) - Deciphering the Contribution of Microglia to Neurodegeneration in Friedreich’s Ataxia [#91]

6.4 Genomics, HOST: Patricia Nano (UCLA) - DMC 151

• Patricia Nano (UCLA) - A Meta-Atlas of the Developing Human Cortex Identifies Modules Driving Cell Subtype Specification [#212]

• Robert Piscopio (UCSB) - Photolabile Oligonucleotides Combined with Topologically Imposed Light Gradients Enable Spatially Resolved Single-Cell Transcriptomics and Epigenomics [#216]

• Ted Tseng (USC)  - In toto recording of cranial neural crest lineage relationships in the zebrafish head [#241]

• Michael Ramos (Cedar Sinai) - CONVERGENT TRANSCRIPTIONAL DYNAMICS OF MICROGLIA IN THE MOUSE SPINAL CORD DURING AGING AND ALS [#220]

• Marc Gumangan (USC) - Transcriptome Analysis of Tail Regeneration in Crested Geckos (Correlophus Ciliatus) [#19]

6.5 Gene Editing, Gene Therapy, HOST: Melissa Spencer (UCLA) - DMC 152

• Taylorlyn Stephan (UCSC) - Genetic Editing of Archaic Alleles into Human Stem Cell Models: NOTO and Cortical Development [#233]

• Nicole Garcia (UC Davis) - Development and Deployment of an ELISA Assay Detecting Sensitization to SaCas9 and SpCas9 [#16]

• Benjamin-Rafael Mingoa (SFSU) - Characterization of Bacteriophages and Respective Hosts in Wastewater [#30]

• Raina Min Jae Jung  (CSUCI) - Variable Penetrant MYH7 G256E Mutation Shows Gene-Dose-Dependent HCM Disease Phenotype on a Transcriptomic, Proteomic, and Functional Level [#105]

6.6 Chromatin, HOST: Matthew Lowe - DMC 154 

• Matthew Lowe (USC) - Understanding How Distinct Heterochromatin States Control Pioneer Factor Binding [#204]

• Yu-Ling Linda Chang (Sanford Burnham Prebys) - Transcription Factor-Mediated Control of Chromatin Accessibility During Cell Fate Reprogramming [#183]

• Ftsum Tesfamichael (Berkeley City College) - The role of neural crest-derived cardiomyocyte enhancers in zebrafish cardiac regeneration [#162]

• Sophia Peavy (UCLA) - Role of PRC2 and XIST in the Erosion of the Inactive X Chromosome in Human Pluripotent Stem Cells [#36]

• Sabrina Rabaya (Pasadena City College) - PRC2 exhibits tumor suppressive activity at early stages of CRC [#142]

6.7 Tumor Organoids & Other In Vitro Models, HOST: Shannon Mummenthaler (EIT, USC) - DMC 155

• Shannon Mummenthaler (EIT, USC) - Tumor Organoids to Study Cancer

• Gabriele Guarnaccia (Sanford Burnham Prebys) - Serum amyloid protein A1 (SAA1) impairs myogenesis and myotube size in pancreatic cancer cachexia [#189]

• Kassidy Curtis (SDSU) - Investigating the Tumor Cell Intrinsic Roles of Fibulin 3 in Pancreatic Tumorigenesis [#77]

• Kay Emanuel (Berkeley City College) - The Impact of PRDM6 Overexpression on Unipolar Brush Cells in the Developing Hindbrain [#83]

• Olivia Doyle (Berkeley City College) - Identifying Divergent Cellular Origin and Therapeutic Targets in Primitive Neuronal Component Glioblastoma [#80]

6.8 CAR Cells, HOST: Sarah Richman (CHLA,USC) - DMC 156

• Diana Gumber (City of Hope) - Improving antitumor T cell therapy with membrane-tethered engineered cytokine agonists (MECAs) [#190]

• Zheng Guo (USC) - Enhancing Granulocyte-Macrophage Progenitors (GMPs) Expansion for Immunotherapy: Optimization and Mechanistic Investigation [#192]

• Alyssa Chang (SFSU) - Development of a Novel Scheme for Generating Nanobodies for Human iPSC-Derived CAR Immune Cell Therapy [#183]

• Evelyn Sanchez (UCSB) - Hyperactive Rac2E62K Mutation Optimizes CAR-M Cancer Immunotherapies for Triple Negative Breast Cancer By Enhancing Whole Cell Engulfment [#42]

6.9 Transgene, Virus, Drug Delivery, HOST:  Griselda Metta Yvone* (Cedars Sinai) - DMC 205

• Griselda Metta Yvone (Cedars Sinai) - vMADR: A method for defined copy number viral transgenesis [#210]

• Shreejha Chandrasekar (CSUCI) - Enhancing Lentiviral Gene Therapy Efficiency by Reducing IFITM2/3 Expression with Chemical Transduction Enhancers [#71]

• Saipriya Chandrasekaran (CSUCI) - AntiSense Oligonucleotide based treatment for mutations using iNeurons [#72]

• Tracy Nguyen (CSUF) - Amelioration of breast cancer chemobrain using human neural stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles [#131]

• Samuel Emerson (Cal Poly Humboldt) - Optimizing Production of Lipid Raft Nanovesicles from Mesenchymal Stem Cells as a size-tunable EV-mimetic drug delivery platform [#84]'

6.10 Molecular Pathways and Disease Modeling, HOST: Maya Bulos* (Scripps) - DMC 207

• Maya Bulos (Scripps) - A druggable ubiquitin-like conjugation system controls Hippo pathway activity [#181]

• Edgar Rolon (CSUSB) - Investigating the Impact of Electronic Cigarette Chemicals on Human Airway Basal Stem Cells in the Trachea and Bronchi [#147]

• Jemima Moses (CSUCI) - Investigating the Cardiovascular Toxicity of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Lenvatinib on Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Endothelial Cells and Cardiomyocytes [#128]

• Alyssa Paynton (Cal Poly Humboldt) - Human Cell Modeling of CDKL5-Deficiency Disorder with Patient Derived Organoids and HD-MEA [#184]

• Nethika Ariyasinghe (Cedars Sinai) - Modeling Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection with iPSC-derived Vascular Systems: Focus on Sex and Female Sex Hormones [#176]

Box Lunch, DMC courtyard (lawn games available!)

Informal lunch discussion:

• Creating community around our scholarship (hosted by Disha Chauhan, USC and John Matsui, UC Berkeley)

1:00 - 3pm

SESSION 7  - Innovation in the field, Trojan Grand Ballroom, Session Chair: Jennifer Manilay, PhD (UC Merced)

1:00-1:20 INVITED SPEAKER: Wei Yan, PhD, Science Journal Editor (eLife), Evolution of Publishing

1:20-1:45 CIRM: Jonathan Thomas, PhD, JD, President and CEO of CIRM

1:45-2:10 INVITED SPEAKER: Bryce Carey (Vertex) Stem Cell-Derived, Fully Differentiated Islet Cells for Type 1 Diabetes 

2:10-2:50 KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Robert 'Bob' Klein, II (Founding Chairman Emeritus for CIRM; Chairman and Author of Proposition 71 – Funding CIRM; Chairman and Author of Proposition 14; Chairman Americans for Cures; Member of the Sanford Stem Cell Institute Executive Council), A Time for Medical Breakthroughs or Repression: A Historic Pivot Point for Stem Cell and Genetic Research and Therapies

2:50 - 3:00pm - Thank you, Survey, and Goodbye!