,

Raine Visiting Professor Lecture – 9 February 2017

Professor Duanqing Pei

Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences

will present a Raine Lecture entitled:

Cell Fate Decisions during Somatic Cell Reprogramming

on 9 February 2017 at 12 pm

at the McCusker Auditorium, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research

All welcome

Professor Duanqing Pei is a stem cell biologist and serves as the Director General (President) at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health (GIBH), Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Guangzhou, China. He obtained his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, before becoming a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, School of Medicine in 1996. He joined the Medical Faculty at Tsinghua University in Beijing China in 2002 and moved to the newly formed GIBH in 2004.

The Pei lab in Tsinghua focusses on stem cell biology, and specifically on the structure and function of Oct4, Sox2, FoxD3, Essrb, and Nanog, and their interdependent relationship towards pluripotency. Based on the understanding of these factors, the Pei lab in GIBH was the first in China to create mouse induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using a non-selective system, and then improved the iPSC process systematically. The Pei lab subsequently disseminated the iPSC technology in China by providing not only resources, but also training workshops. Recent publications from the Pei lab includes the discovery of vitamin C as a potent booster for iPSC generation and a mesenchymal to epithelial transition initiates the reprogramming process of mouse fibroblasts. Professor Pei’s lab continues to explore new ways to improve iPSC technology, dissect the reprogramming mechanisms driven by Oct4/Sox2/Klf4 or fewer factors, and employ iPSCs to model human diseases in vitro.


University Host:
Professor Jiake Xu
School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
The University of Western Australia
Telephone: 9346 2739
Email: jiake.xu@uwa.edu.au