Thursday, November 10

11:00 AM
Registration opens
12:00 PM
Special Session I: Career Paths in Translational Medicine

For MD/PhDs, MDs and PhDs working in translational medicine

1:30 PM
Opening Remarks

Paul Tam (Pro-Vice Chancellor and VP, University of Hong Kong); Ken Chien, MGH; Orla Smith/Katrina Kelner, STM; Ron Li, University of Hong Kong; Sum Lee (Dean, Faculty of Medicine, HKU)

2:00 PM
Keynote Address

Dr. Zhu Chen, Health Minister of China: How science can improve health (To be confirmed, pending Dr. Chen’s schedule)

2:30 PM
Keynote Lecture I

Molly Stevens (Imperial College, London, UK): New materials based approaches for regenerative medicine.

3:30 PM
Coffee Break
3:45 PM
Programming and reprogramming cells for the liver

Kenneth Zaret (U. Penn)

Microscale hepatic tissue engineering

Sangeeta Bhatia (MIT)

Bottlenecks in technology for cell-based liver therapy

Jorg Gerlach (McGowan Institute, U.Pitt)

Session I: Engineering functional liver tissue

Chairs: Sum Lee, Dean of Hong Kong University (25 min talks, 5 mins for questions)

6:00 PM
Opening Reception
7:00 PM
Special Session

Panel discussion on the pros and cons of using exogenous versus endogenous stem cells in tissue engineering

Friday, November 11

8:30 AM
Breakfast/Registration
9:00 AM
The biology of neural stem cells

Evan Snyder (Burnham Institute, San Diego)

Repair and regeneration of the injured brain and spinal cord: The future is now

Michael Fehlings (U. Toronto)

Better biomaterials for engineering tissue

Yasuhiko Tabata (Kyoto University)

Session II: Neural Stem Cells and Nervous System Regeneration

Chairs: Anskar Leung, HKU/Yves Christen, Fondation Ipsen (25 min talks, 5 mins for questions)

10:30 AM
Coffee Break
11:00 AM
Neural stem cells in spinal cord injury and repair

Jonas Frisen (Karolinska Institutet)

Nanofibers and iPS cells for neural regeneration

Song Li (UC Berkeley)

Functional and anatomical ways to repair injured brain and spinal cord

Martin Schwab (Zurich)

Stem cells for discovery and for treating neurodegenerative disease

Ole Isacson (Harvard Medical School)

1:00 PM
Lunch and Poster Session I

Saturday, November 12

8:30 AM
Breakfast

Keynote Speaker

Eric Kandel Columbia University, USA

Speakers

Christoph Baum Hannover School of Medicine, Germany
Ben Philpot University of North Carolina, USA
Chad Cowan Harvard University, USA
Tony de Fougerolles Moderna Therapeutics, USA
Hal Dietz JHMI, USA
Alain Fischer Necker Hospital, France
William Gahl NIH, USA
Richard Gibbs Baylor College of Medicine, USA
Michael Hayden UBC, Canada
Dan Kastner NIAID, USA
Christoph Klein Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany
Susan Lindquist Whitehead Institute, USA
Amit Nathwani University College London, UK
Josef Penninger IMBA, Austria
Steven Schwartz UCLA, USA
Jon Seidman Harvard Medical School, USA
Lorenz Studer Memorial Sloan Kettering, USA
Giulio Superti Furga CeMM, Austria
Paul Tam Hong Kong University, Hong Kong
Anna Wedell Karolinska Institutet, Sweden