Stem Cell Therapy - San Diego Leading the Way

Speakers

Thorsten Gorba, Ph.D, Vice President of Manufacturing at Aspen Neuroscience

Alexey Terskikh, PhD, Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Officer Stemson Therapeutics

Moderated by:

Rajesh Ambasudhan, Ph.D., Chief Strategist, Allele Biotech and Associate Professor, Scintillon Institute

Agenda:

5:30pm –  6:00 pm Networking and light refreshments

6:00pm –  7:30 pm Presentations and Q&A

Free for SDEE & HeraHub Members

$25 Non-members

About the Speakers:

Thorsten Gorba, Ph.D, Vice President of Manufacturing at Aspen Neuroscience

Thorsten is a developmental neuroscientist and stem cell biologist who has also served as a cell and gene therapy consultant with two decades of academia, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industry experience before joining Aspen Neuroscience in 2019. He has served as an Aventis Industry Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Institute for Stem Cell Research and helped with the development of biotechnology companies Neuren Pharmaceuticals, Living Cell technologies, and Stem Cell Sciences Ltd. He most recently served as the founding Translating Center Director of the CIRM Infrastructure grant supported Cell and Gene Therapy Center at IQVIA, where he was responsible for its initial build and sustainable operation. Before IQVIA, Thorsten worked at StemCells Inc. where he was the Director of Assay Development and tasked with leading the company’s assay design and implementation for neural stem cell clinical trial QC product release in Spinal cord injury, AMD, and myelination disorders. Thorsten obtained his MSc in Biology and PhD in Developmental Neuroscience from Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany.

Alexey Terskikh, PhD, Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Officer

Alexey V. Terskikh, PhD, is founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Stemson Therapeutics. co- He developed the technology upon which Stemson Therapeutics was founded. Dr. Terskikh is also an Associate Professor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP). He joined SBP in 2006 focusing his research on molecular mechanisms underlying self-renewal and differentiation of neural stem cells. This work led to the discovery of the process which converts human induced pluripotent stem cells into dermal papilla cells, the specialized cells which control hair growth. Prior to joining SBP, Dr. Terskikh completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University with Professor Irving Weissman. Dr. Terskikh earned his PhD in molecular immunology at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) with Professor Jean-Pierre Mach.