CIRM grantee Joanna Wysocka wins Outstanding Young Investigator Award

Some happy news from this week's meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research held in San Francisco (co-sponsored by CIRM): CIRM grantee Joanna Wysocka won the organization's Outstanding Young Investigator Award, given out at a session on Thursday morning. Wysocka, who is assistant professor of developmental biology at Stanford University School of Medicine, has SEED and New Faculty Awards to study how cells determine their eventual fate in a developing embryo.

In her acceptance speech, Wysocka credited CIRM with directing her work toward stem cell research. After receiving her award, she discussed some of her recent work, described in a recent blog entry from Stanford:

She went on to discuss her recent work in identifying the molecular cause of a human disorder called CHARGE. She also showed how her team has since used an analytical program created by Stanford developmental biologist and computer scientist Gill Bejerano, PhD, to identify more than 2000 sites on DNA that may affect the activity of a special type of cell called a neural crest cell. 

Congratulations to Wysocka and to Stanford!

A.A.