Sean J. Morrison, Ph.D.
President
International Society for Stem Cell Research
Sean J. Morrison is the Director of the Children's Medical Center
Research Institute at UT Southwestern and is the Mary McDermott
Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics as well as an Investigator of the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The Morrison laboratory studies
the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the function
of stem cells and cancer cells in the nervous and hematopoietic
systems. The laboratory is particularly interested in the
mechanisms that regulate stem cell self-renewal and stem cell
aging, as well as the role these mechanisms play in cancer.
Dr. Morrison obtained his B.Sc. in biology and chemistry from Dalhousie University (1991), then
completed a Ph.D. in immunology at Stanford University (1996), and a postdoctoral fellowship in
neurobiology at Caltech (1999). From 1999 to 2011, Dr. Morrison was a Professor at the University of
Michigan where he directed their Center for Stem Cell Biology. Dr. Morrison was a Searle Scholar (20002003), was named to Technology Review Magazine's list of 100 young innovators (2002), received the
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2003), the International Society for
Hematology and Stem Cell's McCulloch and Till Award (2007), the American Association of Anatomists
Harland Mossman Award (2008) and a MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging.
Dr. Morrison has also been active in public policy issues surrounding stem cells. He has twice testified
before Congress and was a leader in the successful "Proposal 2" campaign to protect stem cell research
in Michigan's state constitution.
Dr. Morrison has been actively involved with the International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR)
since its inception in 2002. The society is an independent nonprofit organization established to promote
and foster the exchange and dissemination of information and ideas relating to stem cells, to encourage
the general field of research involving stem cells and to promote professional and public education in all
areas of stem cell research and application.
Sally Temple, Ph.D.
Incoming President
International Society for Stem Cell
Research
Sally Temple is the Scientific Director of the Neural Stem
Cell Institute.
Sally was raised in York, England. She received her BA in
developmental neuroscience from Cambridge University
and PhD from University College London. She then moved
to the US, attending Columbia University, then University
of Miami as a research instructor.
In Miami, Sally discovered that the embryonic mammalian brain contained a rare stem cell, a study
published in Nature in 1989. Her group has continued to make pioneering contributions to
developmental neuroscience, focused on how neural stem cells generate the numerous, diverse cells of
the central nervous system.
Sally became a professor at Albany Medical College in the Center for Neuroscience in 2003, and was
awarded the prestigious Jacob Javits merit award from the National Institutes of Health in 2003.
In August 2007, Dr. Temple co-founded an independent non-profit research institute, the Neural Stem
Cell Institute, and the Regenerative Research Foundation, located in Rensselaer NY, with the mission of
developing stem cell-based therapeutics for retina, brain and spinal cord disorders. As scientific director
of NSCI she develops and implements basic and translational research projects. In 2008, Sally was
awarded a MacArthur fellowship in recognition of her contributions to neural stem cell research. From
2009-2013, she served as Treasurer for the International Society for Stem Cell Research. She is a
member of the board of directors of ISSCR and of the medical and science advisory boards of the NY
Stem Cell Foundation, the Genetics Policy Institute and she directs the stem cell program for the Tau
Consortium of the Rainwater Foundation.
Hans C. Clevers, MD, Ph.D.
President-elect
International Society for Stem Cell Research
Hans Clevers is Professor of Molecular Genetics, Hubrecht
Institute/University Medical Centre Utrecht and President of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Hans Clevers obtained his MD degree in 1984 and his PhD degree in 1985
from the University Utrecht, the Netherlands. His postdoctoral work
(1986-1989) was done with Cox Terhorst at the Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute of the Harvard University, Boston, USA.
Originally focused on T lymphocyte transcription factors, he cloned Tcf1 in 1991. With the discovery that
Tcf factors are the final effectors of Wnt signaling, he changed his interests to the biology of Wnt
signaling in intestinal self-renewal and cancer. He identified a series of adult tissue stem cells with the
novel Lgr5 marker and technologies for long-term culture of these stem cells as epithelial organoids,
currently the major focus of research.
From 1991-2002 Hans Clevers was Professor in Immunology at the University Utrecht and, since 2002,
Professor in Molecular Genetics. From 2002-2012 he was director of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht.
From 2012-2015 he was President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
Since June 1, 2015 he is director Research of the Princess Maxima Center for pediatric oncology.
Hans Clevers has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2000, a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2012 and a member of the National
Academy of Sciences of the USA since 2014. Hans Clevers was elected to the ISSCR Board of Directors in
2010 and re-appointed for a second term in 2013. During this time he has served on the ISSCR Awards,
Finance and Annual Meeting Program committees. He is the recipient of several awards, including the
Dutch Spinoza Award in 2001, the Swiss Louis Jeantet Prize in 2004, the German Meyenburg Cancer
Research Award in 2008, and Ernst Jung-Preis für Medizin in 2011, the French Association pour la
Recherche sur le Cancer (ARC) Léopold Griffuel Prize and the Heineken Prize in 2012 and the
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2013. He obtained ERC Advanced Investigator grants in 2008 and
2015. He is Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur since 2005, Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion
since 2012 and is the co-recipient of the 2015 ISSCR McEwen Award for Innovation.