1. Tell us about your background and how you came to ViaCell.
“I am a Senior Scientist at ViaCell, and I’ve been working here since April 2002. Prior to ViaCell, I conducted research on pancreatic stem cells for three years at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology. ViaCell licensed the project and I was excited to come here to set up the technology. My experience at the company has been a positive one, as it gave me new opportunities and challenges.”

2. Tell us more about the pancreas and the areas you are researching.
“The term you associate the most with the pancreas is insulin. A partial or complete loss of insulin leads to diabetes. Apart from insulin, the pancreas also secretes several other hormones and enzymes. My division is working to develop cellular medicines for the treatment of Type 1, insulin-dependent diabetes. As you may know, the ‘Edmonton’ study that was developed in Canada is a form of successful cell therapy whereby Type 1 patients are injected with healthy islet cells. However, the availability of these cells is limited. At ViaCell, we are trying to explore whether alternative cell therapy approaches can be used for treatment of Type 1 patients and one such approach is to use expanded islet-derived stem cells.”

3. Give us a sense of your typical day as a Senior Scientist at ViaCell.
“Everything is planned ahead, it has to be. We have a team meeting on Monday and set the schedule for the week. Every morning, I meet with my team and discuss the current day’s experiment parameters. After this, we work in the lab, which often involves cell cultures, biochemical assays, measuring insulin, hormones, and genes of interest. At the end of the day, we address any experimental problems that may have arisen. On other occasions, we utilize this time for data analysis.”

4. What training/education is required for this type of work?
“I really value my Ph.D from Kansas State University in Endocrinology; it has improved my analytical thinking. My responsibilities here require these skills. I’m responsible for directing the design and execution of a preclinical research plan.”

5. What part of this job do you find most satisfying?
“It’s very simple to me. I’m inspired every day by the visual of cell responses… our bodies and how they respond to any stimulus. I believe that every small success helps and will lead to the project goal which is to someday find a stem cell therapy that will be a treatment for Type 1 diabetes."

6. How does the work you do here fit in to the big picture of the future of cellular therapy?
“There are approximately one million people with Type 1 diabetes and 60 million people with Type 2 diabetes—in the United States alone. It will be a huge accomplishment if we are one day able to successfully develop a cellular medicine for Type 1, insulin-dependent diabetes.”

7. Share something with us that makes your team of researchers extraordinary.
“We have flawless cooperation between the team members. There’s great team spirit. It’s key in this field to be able to discuss the lab experiments among the team and make progress for the next one to come. We bounce ideas so naturally back and forth in a non-biased way. My team members are tenacious, a quality that is much needed for research!”

8. If there was one word to describe you, what would it be?
"Creative."

9. What do you like to do in your free time and what does your family think about what you do?
“I love music and so does my husband. There are similarities between music and science….both require quantitative skills. A musical rhythm is comprised of several beats, which in turn is based on numbers. When I’m home I have other responsibilities like two little girls and a husband to take care of. I try to separate my work life from my family life, but I’m always thinking about the project and it helps that my family is so supportive and interested in what I do.”

10. What’s your take on umbilical cord blood preservation?
“I think cord blood preservation is essential in family planning. I wish I would have known about the opportunity to preserve my first child’s cord blood. Thankfully, I found out just in time to preserve my second child’s cord blood. Choosing to preserve is so essential because umbilical cord blood stem cells have great potential for fighting blood borne diseases. You just never know, so I strongly recommend expecting parents to choose to preserve, not just for the immediate uses, but because there may be future applications as well.”

11. What professional journals and organizations would you recommend learning more about this growing field?
“To find out more about diabetes, I’d recommend the American Diabetes Association at www.diabetes.org and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Forum at www.jdrf.org. And if you’d like to learn more about stem cells, try The Stem Cell Journal or go to www.pubmedcentral.com.”