AREAS OF SPECIALTY:
Partial Reprogramming
Disease
Aging
“Aging is an inevitable universal trait shared by all humans. Being able to determine and understand the fundamental cellular and molecular processes underlying aging is critical if we want to address the mounting healthcare needs of the growing aged population.”
Pr. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, Ph.D.
Professor of Gene Expression Laboratory, Roger Guillemin Chair, DIRECTOR OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND STEM CELLS BIOLOGY LABORATORIES AT THE SALK INSTITUTE
Professor Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, PhD serves as Director of the Development and Stem Cells Biology Laboratories at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies at La Jolla, California, USA. Prof. Belmonte is a Research Professor of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) and the American Heart Association. He has been President of Scientific Advisiory Board at BIOBIDE,S.L since 2004. Since 2004, he has been the Director of the Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona. He served as a Member of the Scientific Advisory Board at Genetrix SL. He has been a Scientific Journal Editorial Board Member several journals, as BMC Developmental Biology, Development, Developmental Biology, Development Genes & Evolution, Development Growth and Differentiation, International Journal of Developmental Biology and Mechanisms of Development.
He went to The Salk Institute of California (San Diego) as an assistant professor in 1993 and nowadays is a Professor in the research center, where he directs a laboratory working with the zebra fish as a model organism. During his professional life he has received several honors/awards such as the National Science Foundation Creativity Award in 1999, American Heart Association Established Investigator Award in 2000 and the Medal from the Spanish College of Pharmacy in 2006. He holds MSc. (with Honors) in Pharmacology and PhD in Biochemistry and Pharmacology, with a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Marburg, Germany and another postdoctoral fellow in the European Molecular Biology Laboratories (EMBL), Germany.
FOCUS AREAS
Pluripotent Cells. Dr. Izpisua Belmonte has spearheaded the development of new techniques to switch cells from one type—such as skin cells—to another type, from blood to brain to kidney, all the while eliminating the need for pluripotent cells. Dr. Izpisua Belmonte has translated reprogramming technologies to encourage regeneration in living animals in order to, for example, heal infarcted hearts without cell transplantation. All these methods pave the way for stem cell therapies for a plethora of conditions.
Gene Alteration of Stem Cells. Dr. Izpisua Belmonte has also created new ways to alter the genes inside stem cells, potentially allowing researchers to create personalized, “corrected” cells that can be transplanted into a patient to cure inherited disease. He showed the approach works with diseases, including premature aging syndromes, blood disorders and Parkinson’s disease. The platforms generated by Dr. Izpisua Belmonte could be used to correct countless other mutations in stem cell lines and treat other genetic disorders.
aging critical publications
Hatnaka et al. Keeping the Rhythm while Changing the Lyrics: Circadian Biology in Aging. Cell 2017
Ocampo et al. In Vivo Amelioration of Age-Associated Hallmarks by Partial Reprogramming. Cell 2016
Suzuki et al. In vivo genome editing via CRISPR/Cas9 mediated homology-independent targeted integration. Nature 2016
Zhang et al. Aging stem cells. A Werner syndrome stem cell model unveils heterochromatin alterations as a driver of human aging. Science 2015
Liu et al. Recapitulation of premature ageing with iPSCs from Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. Nature 2011