Keynote Speaker

 

Jan A. Nolta, Ph.D., is the Director of the Stem Cell Program at UC Davis School of Medicine, and directs the new Institute for Regenerative Cures, a facility supported by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Dr. Nolta joined UC Davis in 2006 after serving for five years as scientific director of the cell processing and gene therapy Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her laboratory uses human stem and progenitor populations to examine their recruitment to areas of tissue damage in immune deficient mice. Her research is focused on developing improved stem cell therapies for treating neurodegenerative diseases including Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease, Liver disease, lysosomal storage diseases, and peripheral vascular disease. Her group focuses on “bench to the bedside” research, and she has been involved in numerous clinical trials of gene and cell therapy.

 

Her early research experience focused on biology, cell cycle, transduction, and engraftment of human hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem and progenitor cells in immune deficient mouse xenotransplantation models. Dr. Nolta received a Bachelor’s degree from California State University Sacramento, took Masters classes at UC Davis, and then earned a Ph.D. in molecular microbiology from the University of Southern California. She was a post-doctoral fellow with Donald Kohn at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, and with Dr. Kohn’s team, performed the first trials of umbilical cord blood gene therapy for ADA deficiency in neonates born with “bubble baby disease”. She was an assistant professor at the USC School of Medicine before being appointed as an associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine. She has published over 100 manuscripts in the stem cell field and has authored 15 book chapters and numerous invited papers. She was editor of the Book "Genetic Engineering of Mesenchymal Stem Cells", published in 2006.

 

A scientist with more than 20 years’ experience with human stem cells, Nolta has served on more than 75 National Institutes of Health review panels and has been editor and editorial board member on eight scientific journals, in addition to being active in numerous scientific organizations. She is currently Associate Editor for the prestigious journal "Stem Cells". She has often been a keynote lecturer at National and International conferences, and participates in numerous training programs and community lectures, in addition to didactic teaching and lecturing at UC Davis and other Universities.

 

Dr. Nolta is a native of northern California and is extremely happy to be back in the area, after 15 years in Los Angeles and five years in St. Louis. In addition to her basic research into the biology of human stem cells, she is overseeing the expansion of UC Davis’ exploration of regenerative medicine, including the recruitment and hiring of additional scientists to complement the 130 faculty already affiliated with the Stem Cell Program. These basic, translational, and clinical faculty are working in 15 different Disease Teams, each with the goal of using stem cells to better treat or understand disease and tissue injury. There are strong interactions and synergies through the stem cell program between doctors who treat human patients and those who treat canine and equine patients. Dr. Nolta is also overseeing the renovation of the 100,000 square-foot Institute for Regenerative Cures on the UCD Sacramento Health Sciences/Medical School campus. She anticipates that with the existing stem cell expertise at UC Davis, coupled with the new research faculty members, trainees, and facilities in Sacramento, translational stem cell science at the university will rise to new levels and offer great hope for those who suffer from disease and debilitating injury.

 

Additional information about Dr. Jan Nolta can be found here.