Managing Director and Chief Executive, Mesoblast, the regenerative medicine company

Keynote topic:
Stem Cell Therapies… Clinical reality or dream? (November 29, 11.30am)

Professor Silviu Itescu is the Managing Director and Chief Executive of Mesoblast Limited (ASX: MSB; ADR: MBLTY).  He has established an outstanding international reputation in the fields of stem cell biology, autoimmune diseases, organ transplantation and heart failure. His experiences range from laboratory research to new drug development and clinical evaluation. Professor Itescu pioneered novel approaches to the use of adult stem cells for the treatment of heart disease and Mesoblast is now a global leader in this area.

Professor Itescu was an advisor on cell therapy to both the United States President’s Council on Bioethics and the US FDA Biological Response Modifiers Advisory Committee (BRMAC). Before founding Mesoblast, he was Director of Transplantation Immunology at New York’s Columbia University Medical Center and Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and the University of Melbourne. In 2011 Professor Itescu was named BioSpectrum Asia Person of the Year recognizing his leadership role in the global regenerative medicine industry.

Leader in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine

Deep Conversation:
‘Now to Next: How will Science and Technology help solve our wicked problems?’ (November 28, 7.00-9.30pm)
Presentation:
How will our bodies keep up with technology and what will that mean to society? (November 29, 11.30am)

Born and raised in New York City, Nadia Rosenthal obtained her PhD in 1981 from Harvard Medical School and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH, then directed a biomedical research laboratory at Harvard Medical School, and served for a decade at the New England Journal of Medicine as editor of the Molecular Medicine series.

In 2001 she moved to Europe to head the European Molecular Biology Laboratory Outstation in Rome, She is an EMBO member, with numerous awards and honors including the Ferrari-Soave Prize in Cell Biology and Doctors Honoris Causa from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris and the University of Amsterdam. She spearheaded the election of Australia to EMBL as its first Associate Member, serving as its Scientific Head, and in 2008 she founded the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University and Headquarters for the EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory Network. She is an NH & MRC Australia Fellow and holds a Chair in Cardiovascular Science at Imperial College London.

Professor Rosenthal’s research focuses on muscle and cardiac developmental genetics and the role of growth factors and stem cells in tissue regeneration, with over 160 primary research articles and prominent reviews in high impact international journals, including general reviews for Scientific American. She has attracted sponsored research funding from major pharmaceutical companies including Amgen, Genzyme and Novartis for her translational studies. She delivered the 2006 Howard Hughes Holiday Lectures on Potent Biology: Stem Cells, Cloning and Regeneration, co-edited the “bible” of the field, Heart Development and Regeneration and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Differentiation. She brings a unique and powerful perspective on stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the interface of basic, biomedical and industrial life sciences. She is also an accomplished painter and illustrator, providing artwork for her books, journals and conferences.

Scientist, writer, broadcaster, Director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind

Deep Conversation:
‘Now to Next: How will Science and Technology help solve our wicked problems?’ (November 28, 7.00-9.30pm)
Presentation:
The Impact of Technology: Making the Most of the 21st Century Mind (November 29, 11.30am)

The Baroness has been awarded 30 Honorary Degrees from British and foreign universities and heads a multi-disciplinary research group exploring novel brain mechanisms linked to neurodegenerative diseases such  Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In addition, she has developed an interest in the impact of 21st Century technologies on how young people think and feel, as discussed in her book ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century (2008).

In 1998 she received the Michael Faraday Medal from the Royal Society. She was awarded a CBE in the Millennium New Year’s Honours List, and was granted a non-political Life Peerage in 2001.

In 2000 she was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and in 2007 to an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was appointed Chancellor of Heriot Watt University in 2005.  Further recognition of her work includes L’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, and the American Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award, both awarded in 2003, and the Australian Medical Research Society Medal, which she received in 2010.

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