The World Stem Cell Summit was held in downtown San Diego December 3-6, 2013, and was co-organized by Bernard Siegel, Genetics Policy Institute, Jeanne F. Loring, PhD, The Scripps Research Institute, Andre Terzic, MD, PhD, Mayo Clinic, Evan Y. Snyder, PhD, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Jonathan Thomas, PhD, JD, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Norio Nakatsuji, iCeMS, Kyoto University.
We launched the conference in the evening of December 3rd, with a free public forum organized by CIRM. Nine stem cell researchers from all over California explained the basics of stem cells and the progress toward stem cell therapies to a large audience of lay people and scientists.
The goal of the Summit is to promote networking among diverse stem cell stakeholders from every field from law to basic research. The next three days were filled with plenary keynote talks, panels, workshops, focus sessions, and concurrent sessions on stem cell topics that included patient advocacy, regulatory issues, stem cell banking, philanthropy, and research from genomics to stem cell therapies.
There were 1,100 registrants, which did not include the forum attendees on the first night. Registrants came from around the world, including Japan, China, India, the Middle East, Eastern and Western Europe, South America, North America, and South Africa. This was the most well-attended of the Summit conferences, which began in 2005. Each year, the Summit is held in a different state. Next year it will be in San Antonio, Texas.
