In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can change into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of cell in a cell lineage. They are found in both embryonic and adult organisms, but they have slightly different properties in each. They are usually distinguished from progenitor cells, which cannot divide indefinitely, and precursor or blast cells, which are usually committed to differentiating into one cell type.
The Temerty Faculty of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Toronto. Founded in 1843, the faculty is based in Downtown Toronto and is one of Canada's oldest institutions of medical studies, being known for the discovery of insulin, stem cells and the site of the first single and double lung transplants in the world.
Louis Siminovitch was a Canadian molecular biologist. He was a pioneer in human genetics, researcher into the genetic basis of muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis, and helped establish Ontario programs exploring genetic roots of cancer.
Mario Ramberg Capecchi is an Italian-born molecular geneticist and a co-awardee of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a method to create mice in which a specific gene is turned off, known as knockout mice. He shared the prize with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
James Edgar Till is a University of Toronto biophysicist, best known for demonstrating – in a partnership with Ernest McCulloch – the existence of stem cells.
Ernest Armstrong McCulloch was a University of Toronto cellular biologist, best known for demonstrating – in a partnership with James Till – the existence of stem cells.
Tak Wah Mak, is a Canadian medical researcher, geneticist, oncologist, and biochemist. He first became widely known for his discovery of the T-cell receptor in 1983 and pioneering work in the genetics of immunology. In 1995, Mak published a landmark paper on the discovery of the function of the immune checkpoint protein CTLA-4, thus opening the path for immunotherapy/checkpoint inhibitors as a means of cancer treatment. Mak is also the founder of Agios Pharmaceuticals, whose lead compound, IDHIFA®, was approved by the FDA for acute myeloid leukemia in August 2017, becoming the first drug specifically targeting cancer metabolism to be used for cancer treatment. He has worked in a variety of areas including biochemistry, immunology, and cancer genetics.
James Edwin Darnell Jr. is an American biologist who made significant contributions to RNA processing and cytokine signaling and is author of the cell biology textbook Molecular Cell Biology.
John Edgar Dick is Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto in Canada. Dick is credited with first identifying cancer stem cells in certain types of human leukemia. His revolutionary findings highlighted the importance of understanding that not all cancer cells are the same and thus spawned a new direction in cancer research. Dick is also known for his demonstration of a blood stem cell's ability to replenish the blood system of a mouse, his development of a technique to enable an immune-deficient mouse to carry and produce human blood, and his creation of the world's first mouse with human leukemia.
Constance Jean Eaves CorrFRSE was a Canadian biologist with significant contributions to cancer and stem cell research. Eaves was a professor generics of genetics at the University of British Columbia and was also the co-founder with Allen C Eaves of Terry Fox Laboratory.
Yasutomi Nishizuka, MJA, ForMemRS was a prominent Japanese biochemist and made important contributions to the understanding of molecular mechanism of signal transduction across the cell membrane. In 1977, he discovered protein kinase C, which plays significant roles in a variety of intracellular signal transduction processes.
Ralph Marvin Steinman was a Canadian physician and medical researcher at Rockefeller University, who in 1973 discovered and named dendritic cells while working as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Zanvil A. Cohn, also at Rockefeller University. Steinman was one of the recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He is a professor and the director emeritus of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California; and as a professor of anatomy at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Yamanaka is also a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).
Sean J. Morrison is a Canadian-American stem cell biologist and cancer researcher. Morrison is the director of Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI), a nonprofit research institute established in 2011 as a joint venture between Children’s Health System of Texas and UT Southwestern Medical Center. With Morrison as founding director, CRI was established to perform transformative biomedical research at the interface of stem cell biology, cancer and metabolism to better understand the biological basis of disease. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has served as president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and European Molecular Biology Organization.
Allen Charles Edward Eaves is the co-founding Director of the Terry Fox Laboratory for Hematology/Oncology Research, which over a 25-year period (1981–2006) he grew into an internationally recognized centre for the study of leukemia and stem cell research. His own research on chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) has led the way to a new understanding of the disease. As Head of Hematology at the British Columbia Cancer Agency and the University of British Columbia for 18 years (1985–2003) he engineered the building of one of the first and largest bone marrow transplant programs in Canada. In recognition of his research accomplishments and leadership in moving basic science discoveries in stem cell biology into the clinic, he was elected President of the International Society of Cellular Therapy (1995–1997), Treasurer of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (1995–2002) and President of the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (1999–2000). In 2003 he was awarded the prestigious R. M. Taylor Medal by the Canadian Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute of Canada.
Richard Olding Hynes is a British biologist, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and the Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research focuses on cell adhesion and the interactions between cells and the extracellular matrix, with a particular interest in understanding molecular mechanisms of cancer metastasis. He is well known as a co-discoverer of fibronectin molecules, a discovery that has been listed by Thomson Scientific ScienceWatch as a Nobel Prize candidate.
Peter Carey Nowell was a cancer researcher and co-discoverer of the Philadelphia chromosome. At the time of his death, he was the Gaylord P. and Mary Louise Harnwell Emeritus Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Guo Mei is a hematologist and associate director of 307th Hospital of Chinese People’s Liberation Army and deputy director of Radiation Research Institute.
Gregg Leonard Semenza is an American pediatrician and Professor of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He serves as the director of the vascular program at the Institute for Cell Engineering. He is a 2016 recipient of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. He is known for his discovery of HIF-1, which allows cancer cells to adapt to oxygen-poor environments. He shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability" with William Kaelin Jr. and Peter J. Ratcliffe. Semenza has had thirteen research papers retracted due to falsified data.
William G. Kaelin Jr. is an American Nobel laureate physician-scientist. He is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. His laboratory studies tumor suppressor proteins. In 2016, Kaelin received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the AACR Princess Takamatsu Award. He also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2019 along with Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza.
