Spotlight on Student Presenters at SCRMC Fall Conference 2025

Arista Whitson presented a poster titled "Benchmarking Hematopoietic Engraftment Dynamics from Primary Cells of an Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Donor" focusing on the engraftment levels and functionality of both primary HSPCs and iPSC-HSPCs to create a gold-standard database that can be used as a resource in future studies. They impressed conference-goers with their clarity and depth of knowledge in the use of iPSC-HSPCs in regenerative therapies, where they received valuable feedback from experts in the field.

Christopher Decorte presented a poster titled " Engineering Immune-Evasive ICAM-1 Knockout PSC-Derived Endothelial Cells for Modeling Transplant Allograft Rejection Under Physiologically Relevant Conditions", which explored a stem cell–based 3D-in vitro vascular model to study immune cell evasion by ICAM-1 knockout PSC-ECs. The poster highlighted ICAM-1 targeting as a promising approach to improve graft survival in regenerative transplantation. Their work sparked engaging discussions with attendees and showcased the innovative approaches our lab is taking in developing hypoimmune stem cell-derived endothelial cells for vascular cell therapies.