During the reporting period, all eight students in our first cohort successfully advanced to candidacy and began their research internships at UC Davis in June 2023. This cohort’s 8-month research internships will conclude on January 31, 2024, at which point the students will begin writing their theses and prepare for their thesis defense seminars, which will take place in May 2024. We also recruited and seated our second cohort of students in Fall 2023. All students in our second cohort have selected their host internship labs at UC Davis and are in the process of developing their project proposals with their research advisors. Their research internships will begin June 1, 2024, following their advancement to candidacy seminars.

We held Regenerative Medicine Lecture (RML) seminars in the Spring and Fall semesters, a stem cell research-focused seminar series that is advertised and open to the public. Our RML speaker in the Spring was Dr. Gerhard Bauer, Adjunct Professor and Laboratory Director of the Good Manufacturing Practices Facility at the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures who presented a talk titled “Cell and Gene Therapy – Overview From Early Research to Successful Cures.” Our RML speaker in the Fall featured Dr. Maria Carolina (Carol) Marchetto, an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at UC San Diego and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Salk Institute who presented a lecture titled “Using Stem Cells to Treat Bipolar Disorder.”

We hosted four speakers for our Spring colloquium series called the Bench to Bedside (B2B) colloquium, which was developed to provide our students with a more comprehensive understanding of regenerative medicine. The B2B seminars featured diverse speakers with a variety of experiences and expertise in the field, from research scientists in the biotech sector developing novel therapeutics, clinical scientists who administer treatments, and patient advocates who discussed the experience of patients, including issues related to equity and inclusion. Our Spring B2B speakers were: Karen O’Donnell, a clinical scientist from the UC Davis Alpha Stem Cell clinic; Ana Moreno, PhD, Founder & CEO of Navega Therapeutics; Anne Klein, PhD; CIRM Patient Advocate and parent of a child who was saved by a stem-cell based therapy; and, Le Ondra Clark Harvey, PhD, CIRM patient advocate and CEO of California Council of Behavioral Health Agencies.

Finally, students in our first cohort all participated in a community outreach and education program in which they gave presentations to Minority Serving Institutions and community colleges throughout Northern California. For their presentations, they shared information with undergraduate students about the field of regenerative medicine, about their specific research projects, about our CIRM-supported graduate program, and gave advice about pursuing stem cell research.