About Our Community

We are a growing alliance of institutional and corporate partners committed to collaborative stem cell education, research, development and commercialization. Our aim is to work together in designing, developing and implementing a new paradigm for treating and eventually curing patients. Inspired by founders of the New Jersey Stem Cell Research & Education Foundation (NJSCREF), our grass roots efforts to build a stem cell healing & healthcare community in Newark, New Jersey are now being embraced by people, groups and institutions throughout the state.

Through a diverse array of community development roundtables, workshops, events and projects, we have begun to put in motion a translational model for timely, responsible and ethical "Bench to Bedside" development of stem cell therapies. In doing so, we have gained a sense of collective vision, action and unity in developing plans and projects designed to benefit patients and their families.

Our Brief History

Our community began in early 2005 with a strategic relationship between the New Jersey Stem Cell Research and Education Foundation (NJSCREF) and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Dr. Donald Sebastian, NJIT's Senior Vice President for Research and Development, recognized in early conversations with NJSCREF founders that "reverse engineering principles" could be applied to the acceleration of stem cell commercialization. With NJITs backing, we then engaged leading experts in genomics (Dr. Patricia Soteropoulos and colleagues at the Public Health Research Institute's Center for Applied Genomics) and stem cell biology (Joseph Mintzer and colleagues at the Coriell Institute for Medical Research). Shortly before our first public presentation (Bio2005), the President of the UMDNJ Alumni Association (Joseph DiTrolio, M.D.) began to raise tough questions about the clinical challenges that lay ahead. With his help, we were able to develop strong ties with clinical research and education experts at the New Jersey Medical School, bringing a much needed clinical perspective to our project development efforts.

Steering Committee

• Joseph DiTrolio, M.D. (UMDNJ Alumni Association)
• Michael LaSalle, M.D., F.A.C.S. (MLI Ventures)
• Joseph Mintzer (Coriell Institute for Medical Research)
• Donald Sebastian, Ph.D. (New Jersey Institute of Technology)
• Patricia Soteropoulos, Ph.D. (Center for Applied Genomics of the Public Health Research Institute)

International Advisors

• Roger Cubicciotti, Ph.D. (NanoMedica, Inc.)
• Mukund Chorghade, Ph.D. (Chorghade Enterprises)
• Connie Zhou, MSEE (Abacus Biocomputing Systems LLC)

Domestic Advisors

• Robert Marlin
• Bradley McGowan
• Harold Olmstead