The Niche Hub Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) included senior medical, academic and industrial experts who provided independent advice regarding the Hub’s activities and strategy to ensure scientific excellence. The SAB steered and challenged the Hub during the development and delivery of scientific and translational goals. The Niche Hub Advisory Board consisted of the following members:
Prof Humphrey Hodgson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University College London, UK. (SAB Chair)
Humphrey Hodgson holds an emeritus chair of medicine at UCL, and was formerly Sheila Sherlock Chair of Medicine at the Royal Free /UCL 1999-2012, and before that professor of medicine and gastroenterology at Imperial College and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School London. His current research interests concentrate on developing extracorporeal liver support based on high density 3-dimensional cultures of liver cells, and previous interests have included growth factors affecting the liver, methods to enhance gene transfer into hepatocytes, and immunological aspects of gastrointestinal inflammation. He is editor of the journal Clinical Medicine.
Dr Diane Harbison, Chief Executive Officer of Stratified Medicine Scotland, UK.
Diane brings more than 20 years knowledge and experience in life sciences to her role as CEO of the Stratified Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre, gained from senior roles in industry, academia and in SMEs, including the European Bioinformatics Institute and Pfizer, where she was head of e-biology. She moved into business development at Pfizer, where she was responsible for negotiating licenses and collaborations to enable access to novel technologies and assets up to the pre-proof of concept stage. She was recruited to establish the business development team at Edinburgh BioQuarter. Under her leadership, the BioQuarter business development team successfully established strategic alliances with many of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies. Subsequently as Managing Director of BioCity Scotland, she was instrumental in increasing tenant occupancy and achieving Enterprise Area Status for the site. Her earlier career was at the EBI working on the EMBL database. She has a PhD and a BSc in Molecular Biology from Glasgow University and a MBA from Henley Business School.
Dr Pamela Robey, NIH/NIDCR, Bethesda, USA.
Pamela Gehron Robey, Ph.D., is chief of the Skeletal Biology Section of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She is also the co-coordinator of the NIH Bone Marrow Stromal Cell Transplantation Center, and Acting Scientific Director of the NIH Stem Cell Unit. She has worked in the area of bone and stem cell biology for over 20 years, which includes basic, translational and clinical studies. She has served on numerous editorial boards in the past, and is currently the Senior Editor of Stem Cell Research, and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and Stem Cells, in addition to being a regular reviewer for many other journals. She is an active member of the NIH and extramural community, and focuses in particular on activities to foster career development of junior investigators in the field.
Dr Mahendra S. Rao, MD, PhD.
Mahendra Rao received his MD from Bombay University in India and his PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from the California Institute of Technology. Mahendra Rao is widely known for his research involving human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), iPSC, and other somatic stem cells. Dr. Rao and has worked in the stem cell field for more than twenty years with stints in academia, government and regulatory affairs and industry.
Dr. Rao has an extensive background teaching medical and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows at several institutions including the National Insttitutes of Health, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, The National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, and the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Rao has published more than 300 papers on stem cell research and is the co-founder of a neural stem cell company Q therapeutics based in Salt lake City (Utah).
Dr. Rao serves on several editorial boards, review panels scientific advisory boards and company boards. He continues to work with the NIH and FDA on consent other regulatory authorities on ESC related issues most recently as the CIRM and ISSCR liaison to the ISCT. Dr Rao is currently the Vice president of Research in Regenerative Medicine at Q therapeutics . He currently serves on the Board of CESCA, XCell and Q therapeutics and on the SAB’s and as a consultant of various stem cell companies including the New York Stem Cell foundation. He continues to maintain an active research program in neural development and in evaluating cell based screening and therapy to treat disorders of the nervous system.
Prof Michael Ott, Hannover Medical School, Germany.
Michael Ott, MD, is a professor of internal medicine and experimental hepatology at the Hannover Medical School, Germany, and heads the department of Cell and Gene Therapy for liver diseases. He received medical training from Muenster, Frankfurt and Hannover, Germany and basic scientific education from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, U.S.A. His laboratory addresses a broad range of scientific subjects in regenerative biology of the liver and conducts translational research in cell- and gene therapies for inherited metabolic disorders of the liver.
Dr Nobuko Uchida, StemCells Inc., Newark, CA, USA.
