Dr. James A. Thomson is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Anatomy
at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Dr. Thomson first isolated
and cultured embryonic stem cells in 1997. In 1999, WiCell Research
Institute (a private non-profit organization) was established with a
mission to provide human embryonic stem cells for research purposes
to academic scientists all over the world. Dr. Thomson is the
research director for WiCell. In 1998, Thomson was featured in
Science Magazine, and his picture appeared on the cover of TIME
magazine in 2001.
The major focus of his university lab is on understanding how
primate embryonic stem (ES) cells choose between self-renewal,
apoptosis, and differentiation to specific lineages. Species such as
the rhesus monkey provide an extremely accurate model for
understanding human development, but the limited availability of
embryonic material has historically limited progress in primate
experimental embryology. For this reason, his group has isolated
primate ES cells to serve as an accurate tissue culture model for
the differentiation of human tissues. Thomson’s lab is currently
studying factors that promote human and rhesus monkey ES cell
self-renewal and in collaboration with other groups at the U.W. are
studying the differentiation of these cells to hematopoietic,
cardiac, pancreatic, and neural cells. The research examines shared
mechanisms of self-renewal and pluripotency by comparing the gene
expression patterns by human ES cells, hematopoietic stem cells, and
neural stem cells. To identify genes that control self-renewal or
that control specific differentiation events, they are developing
powerful genetic screens based on phage display and lentiviral
expression cloning. Ultimately, the differentiated derivatives of
human ES cells could have important applications in transplantation
medicine, and the rhesus monkey and rhesus ES cells will provide an
essential model for developing novel ES cell-based therapies. http://www.anatomy.wisc.edu/faculty_thomson.html
Dr. Craig January is a Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the
University of Wisconsin – Madison. January studies the cellular and
molecular mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias using voltage clamp and
biochemical techniques to study a variety of ion channels in native myocytes and cloned channels expressed in heterologous systems. He
has described the importance of the L-type calcium channel in the
mechanism for early afterdepolarizations thought to underlie the
long QT arrhythmia Torsades des pointes. His present focus is on the
trafficking, gating kinetics and pharmacology of the human
ether-a-go-go related potassium channel (HERG) and naturally
occurring mutations in HERG that cause sudden death in patients with
congenital long QT (LQT2) syndrome. January has developed a standard
assay for long QT arrhythmia based on the hERG channel. http://www.cvrc.wisc.edu/training/january.html
Dr. Timothy J. Kamp is a Professor of Medicine with an
affiliate appointment as an Associate Professor of Physiology at the
University of Wisconsin – Madison. Kamp’s research studies
cardiovascular calcium channels function, structure and regulation,
remodeling of cardiomyocytes and excitation-contraction coupling in
heart failure, and isolation and characterization of human embryonic
stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. http://www.physiology.wisc.edu/faculty/affiliate/kamp.html
Thomson and Kamp have developed a technique to reliably direct human
embryonic stem cells to become cardiomyocytes (heart cells), making
it possible to use real human heart cells to screen drug candidates
for safety and effectiveness in a lab before the drugs are given to
human patients.
