The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) extends congratulations to Derrick Rossi, PhD, a member of the inaugural class of NYSCF-Robertson Investigators, who was named one of Time Magazine's 2010 "People Who Mattered" in the December 27, 2010 Person of the Year Issue.
Dr. Rossi, an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, was lauded for his discovery of an innovative method for reprogramming skin cells back into stem cells - pluripotent stem (iPS) cells - that uses messenger molecules, instead of viruses, to eliminate risks, such as cancer, posed by previous methods. Dr. Rossi's work was featured in Time Magazine (September 30, 2010) "A Stem Cell Breakthrough May Ease the Way to Human Treatments."
"We are delighted that a member of our inaugural class of NYSCF-Robertson Investigators has been selected by Time Magazine as a 'Person who Matters,'" said Susan L. Solomon, NYSCF's CEO. "Dr. Rossi's important work will help us realize the potential of stem cell research to treat diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. We are thrilled to support Dr. Rossi's critical research, which has the potential to accelerate the path from bench to bedside. He is well on his way to a fabulous career."
NYSCF named Dr. Rossi as one of six NYSCF Investigators at its Fifth Annual Translational Stem Cell Research Conference last October as an expansion of its ongoing efforts to promote the next generation of stem cell scientists. Each of the NYSCF-Robertson Investigators receive $1.5 million over the next five years to expand their own laboratories, train other scientists and foster innovative high-risk/high reward research to explore the therapeutic potential of stem cells derived from humans and model organisms. This funding will support the most promising and creative scientists whose research projects have the potential to accelerate the path from bench to bedside.
Dr. Rossi heads his own lab at the Immune Disease Institute at Harvard Medical School, where he leads a group of researchers who focus on hematopoietic stem cell biology - mechanisms that regulate self-renewal and multi-potency - as well as reprogramming the cellular identity of a number of cell types to pluripotency or into clinically useful cell types. Dr. Rossi began his career at the Mount Sinai Research Institute at the University of Toronto, and did postgraduate work with Dr. Irving Weissman at Stanford University. His work has been published in numerous scientific journals, including Nature, Science, PNAS, and Cell Stem Cell.
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