Society for Biological Engineering Holds First International Conference on Stem Cell E...( NEW YORK Jan. 16 /- With the fiel...)

NEW YORK, Jan. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- With the field of stem cells an ever- more important area of research, the Society for Biological Engineering (SBE) has organized the First International Conference on Stem Cell Engineering. The conference, which runs from January 20th to 23rd at the Coronado Island Marriott Resort, Coronado Island, California, will focus on engineering designs for stem cell production, moving from the laboratory to bioprocesses for usable stem cell therapeutics.

Among other topics, speakers will describe advances in the understanding of biological mechanisms that underlie stem cell processes, the technologies employed to study stem cell function, and the development of bioprocesses to culture stem cells for commercial applications.

Keynote speakers include:

-- George Daily, associate director of the Stem Cell Program at Children's

Hospital in Boston

-- Douglass Lauffenburger, professor and chair of the Department of

Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

-- Irving Weissman, professor in the Departments of Pathology and

Developmental Biology at Stanford University

"To improve healthcare, biologists and engineers need to work together, and this is especially true in the area of stem cell science and technology," said June Wispelwey, SBE's executive director. She added: "We're holding this conference because stem cells hold so much promise, but there's also so much to be done in terms of propagating stem cells, and applying what we know to tissue engineering, cell therapy, and drug development."

About SBE:

The Society for Biological Engineering is a technological community for engineers and applied scientists integrating biology with engineering. It was established by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), in 2004. Members of SBE come from a broad spectrum of industries and disciplines and share in SBE's mission of
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