Ask the experts about brain diseases and repair; conference grants for students and ECRs
Discover how stem cells could boost our understanding of brain health and potentially treat diseases. Hear about the latest research and ask your own questions at a free online event, Future Medicine: Stem Cells and Brain Health on 5 June. More below
And listen here to the ABC Radio National broadcast of the recent Making Cancer Treatment Worth It public forum in Adelaide, supported by the Foundation as part of our mission to provide community education.
Do you know an outstanding mid-career stem cell researcher? Applications open soon for two $60,000 Metcalf Prizes. More below, including national accolades for a past Metcalf Prize winner and jury member.
Apply or encourage your junior colleagues to apply for one of our young researchers grants to attend Australia’s premier stem cell science conference in November on Queensland’s Gold Coast. More below.
The International Society for Stem Cell Research 2025 Annual Meeting takes place in Hong Kong from 11 to 14 June. Read on for program highlights and details of Foundation board member Professor Megan Munsie’s new leadership role with the global body.
Plus:
- the federal government announces a $238 million industry-led regenerative therapies research centre
- US researchers reveal link between ageing, stem cells and belly fat
- 2024 Metcalf Prize winner William Roman talks muscle cell communication and repair with Bench Side Story
- and more in our regular round-up of stem cell news from around the world.
Kind regards,
Dr Graeme L Blackman AO
Chairman, National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia
In this bulletin:
- WEBINAR EVENT: Future Medicine – Stem Cells and Brain Health
- Nominate for 2 x $60,000 Metcalf Prizes… opening soon
- Apply for grants and submit abstracts for stem cell science conference in the Gold Coast
- Register for ISSCR 2025: 11-14 June in Hong Kong
- Stem cell news from around the world
WEBINAR EVENT: Future Medicine – Stem Cells and Brain Health
How can we better understand, protect and even repair the human brain?
Meet and question our panel of researchers who are using stem cells to study and potentially treat brain disorders: conditions such as multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
About two in five Australians will experience a brain disorder in their lifetime. Unfortunately, we still have much to learn about the brain and what happens as we age.
The good news is that scientists working with stem cells are discovering:
- How our brains deteriorate as we age, and what we can do about it
- How stem cells might repair the brain and reverse conditions like Parkinson’s disease
- How multiple sclerosis could become a “disease without disability”
- How else stem cells can be used in advancing new therapies for brain conditions.
Find out more from our panel of researchers and clinicians working on:
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Parkinson’s disease and mitochondrial disorders – Professor Carolyn Sue AM, a clinician-scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia in Sydney
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Parkinson’s disease, and other neurological conditions including stroke, motor neuron disease (MND) and Huntington’s disease – Professor Clare Parish from The Florey in Melbourne
- Multiple sclerosis and other neurological conditions – Professor Kaylene Young from the Menzies Institute in Hobart.
Register now: events.humanitix.com/stem-cells-and-brain-health
Nominate for 2 x $60,000 Metcalf Prizes… opening soon
Each year we award two $60,000 prizes to support the field’s rising stars and set them up for future success.
Do you fit the bill? Or do you know someone who deserves this opportunity and the recognition? Encourage them to apply when we open for applications late next month. We know from experience that some winners applied only after receiving encouragement from their peers.
Many past prize recipients have gone on to win significant government and philanthropic grants, and other accolades.
For example, QIMR Berghofer bioengineer James Hudson is mass-producing human heart tissue from stem cells. The year after he won a 2019 Metcalf Prize he was awarded an $8 million Snow Fellowship. In April, he was named among The Australian Academy of Science 2025 honorific awardees, receiving the Jacques Miller Medal (mid-career honorific award) in recognition of his contributions to heart health and treatments.
The Metcalf Prizes are open to post-doctoral researchers who have completed their PhD or MD (research-based) within the past 5-10 years. They are awarded for intellectual merit, professional esteem, leadership, and their potential to have continuing impact on stem cell research in Australia.
Find out more about the prizes.
See the full list of past winners.
Australian stem cell science conference heads to Queensland’s Gold Coast in November
Now is the time to apply for grants and submit abstracts
The Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research (ASSCR) 2025 Annual Meeting will take place on 10 – 12 November at QT Gold Coast on Queensland’s iconic coastline.
The Foundation is again supporting a grants and awards program, sponsoring ASSCR member postgraduate students and early career researchers to attend and present their research, and awarding prizes for the best oral and poster presentations.
Apply or encourage your junior colleagues to apply for the grants: www.asscrmeeting.com.au/awards.
The program was created to support the next generation of stem cell researchers early in their careers, kickstart their network building, and give them opportunities to present their work. Hundreds of grants have been awarded since it started in 2013.
For example, Lincon Stamp, who researches enteric (intestine-related) nervous system stem cells, was one of our travel grant recipients in 2014, winning the conference’s award for top oral presentation from an early career researcher. Today, he’s ASSCR President!
The organising committee is also calling for abstracts for the conference. The deadline for both grant applications and abstract submissions is 1 August 2025.
More information: www.asscrmeeting.com.au
Register for ISSCR 2025:
11 – 14 June in Hong Kong
Join close to 4000 scientists from around the globe for stem cell science’s premier international conference. See the full program and register online at www.isscr2025.org.
Highlights include:
- A plenary session exploring stem cells as the engines of daily regeneration in adult tissues, with speakers including Metcalf Prize winner James Hudson.
- The perspectives of patients with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and their families in a plenary session focused on advocacy and access.
- An exploration of ‘Immunoengineering’ – from the development of the immune system to its engineering next-generation therapy, with 2015 Metcalf Prize winner Christine Wells speaking.
In related news, stem cell ethics, education and policy researcher and Foundation board member Professor Megan Munsie steps up as Clerk of the ISSCR.
“I'm honoured to be selected for this role by my peers, and to continue to support the ISSCR in their mission of excellence in stem cell science and applications to human health,” she says of the society's 2025 Executive Committee and Board of Directors election result.
Stem cell news from around the world
Between newsletters, we share stem cell news on social media:
Here are a few stories we’ve shared recently:
Bench Side Story: 2024 Metcalf Prize winner Dr William Roman, from Monash University’s Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, talks about growing human muscles on a chip as a model to understand intercellular communication.
Radio 2RPH: The Foundation’s 2021 Matched Funding Program recipient, Associate Professor Raymond Wong, appeared on Ablequest podcast taking about progress of his ground-breaking research harnessing the regenerative power of the retina’s own stem cells to help people with impaired vision.
9 News Australia: Federal government announces 238 million industry-led research centre SMART CRC, hosted by The University of Queensland, to accelerate industrial-scale manufacturing of regenerative therapies.
ISS National Laboratory: Upcoming microgravity studies on the International Space Station will trace inflammation pathways involved in neurodegenerative diseases.
Yahoo News Australia: International research team led by Germany’s Max Planck Institute discovers peripheral neural stem cells in lung tissue holding hope for development of new therapies for Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative disorders.
The Florey Institute: Researchers engineer a way to fool the immune system into accepting neural grafts as part of the body, rather than attacking them as foreign objects.
The Australian: Weekend Magazine article ‘The end of cancer: cell therapy breakthroughs take us to the edge of a cure’.
Live Science: Lab-grown teeth could offer alternative to fillings and implants as Kings College London team moves closer to growing natural tooth replacements using stem cells and bioengineered environments.
SciTechDaily: University of Michigan researchers find planarian worms don’t lose adult stem cells with age and regenerate youthful versions of themselves, even growing new heads.
Nature: Microbial molecule of ageing gut nudges blood stem cells towards cancer.
Science Daily: US researchers reveal aging ‘shifts stem cells into overdrive to create more belly fat’.
Inside Precision Medicine: Parkinson’s cell therapies are ‘safe’ in two clinical trials, according to results of patients receiving transplants of lab-grown dopaminergic neuron progenitor cells.
The Conversation: A new Cochrane review finds evidence of benefits and harms of stem cell injections for knee osteoarthritis remains elusive.
The Art Newspaper: Art Gallery of Western Australia’s Revivification exhibition uses a ‘mini-brain’, grown from stem cells originating from donated blood of late composer to create sound installation in real time.
About the Foundation
The National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia is an ATO-registered tax-deductible Health Promotion Charity dedicated to promoting the study and responsible use of stem cells to reduce the burden of disease.
The Foundation’s activities include:
- supporting research that pursues cures for as-yet-untreatable diseases
- building a community of people with a shared interest in stem cell science
- providing the Australian public with objective, reliable information on both the potential and risks of stem cell medicine.
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