Scientific Board

Christopher H. Allan, MD
Karen Crawford, PhD
Ellen Heber-Katz, PhD
Carlos Lopez, PhD
Bryon E. Petersen, PhD
Simon J. Simonian, MD, ScD

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Christopher H. Allan, MD

Associate Professor, Department of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine
University of Washington
School of Medicine
1959 NE Pacific St.
Box 356500
Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 731-2077
callan@u.washington.edu

Chris Allan is a hand reconstructive surgeon at the Harborview Medical Center of the Universty of Washington. Dr. Allan earned the MD degree from Northwestern University in 1991. He completed a Residency in Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Chicago in 1997 and a Fellowship in Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine in 1998. Dr. Allan was awarded the Diplomate from the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery in 2000, and the Certificate of Added Qualifications in Hand Surgery in 2001. He was also a 2004 Clinical Scientist Traveling Fellow under the auspices of the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation. Dr. Allen is currently pursuing research designed to replace amputated human digits by regeneration in situ, using an in vitro human fetal digit model and an in vivo rabbit digit regrowth model. He is also conducting research aimed at constructing a bioartificial digit by seeding chitosan scaffolds with mesenchymal stem cells from rabbit bone marrow.

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Karen Crawford, PhD

Professor of Biology, Department of Biology
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
18952 E. Fisher Rd
St. Mary’s City, MD 20686
(240) 895-4598
kcrawford@smcm.edu

Karen Crawford earned a BS from the University of Massachusetts and the MS and PhD degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985 and 187, respectively. She served as a sabbatical leave replacement at Swarthmore College during 1987-1988 before pursuing postdoctoral research at the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation (now the Burnham Institute) in La Jolla California from 1988 to 1991. Dr. Crawford has been on the faculty at St. Mary’s College since 1991, where she has served on the faculty senate as a member and the Vice President and chaired the Health Science Advisory Committee. Fro 2001 to 2005, she served as the Chair of the Department of Biology. She was recently named the Aldom-Plansoen Distinguished Endowed Professor in Contemporary Studies, 2003-2006, and received the College’s highest award for teaching, the Homer L. Dodge Excellence in Teaching Award in 2005. She served on the Board of Trustees for the Society of Developmental Biology from 1995-1998, and as a member of the Professional Development and Education Committee from 1993-2003, which she chaired from 2000-2003. Dr. Crawford is widely recognized for her work on pattern formation in amphibian limb regeneration and is currently investigating the role of growth factors I this system. She is also recognized for her research contributions to cephalopod development, conducted in the summers at Woods Hole, where she is currently a Corporation Member of the Marine Biological Laboratory.

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Ellen Heber-Katz, PhD

Professor, Wistar Institute
3601 Spruce St.
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 898-3710
heberkatz@wistar.org

Ellen Heber-Katz earned her PhD in immunology at the University of Pennsylvania and spent five years as a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH in the NIAID Laboratory of Immunology. Her research interests are broad and include seminal work on TCR, antigen, and MHC interactions, TcR usage in autoimmunity, and immune responses to HSV antigens. Dr. Heber-Katz pioneered the first potent vaccine capable of stimulating T cell-mediated protection in the absence of antibodies. She discovered the extraordinary ability of the MRL mouse to regenerate multiple organ systems, including cardiac muscle, cartilage and skin. Over the past decade she has advanced the understanding of mammalian regeneration through the genetic dissection of this phenomenon, and is exploring the cellular and molecular basis of formation of the regeneration blastema in the MRL mouse.

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Carlos Lopez, PhD

Vice President for Research, EndGenitor Technologies, Inc.
Indiana University Emerging Technologies Center
351 Tenth St.
Indianapolis, IN 46202
(317) 278-4100
clopez1@indy.rr.com

Carlos Lopez received his Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and MS and PhD degrees in Public Health from the University of Minnesota. Following a two year postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Robert A. Good in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Lopez was recruited to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City where he was head of the Herpesvirus Infections Laboratory and a member of the staff of the Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences for the following twelve years. He moved to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where he was in charge of the Viral Examthems Branch, Virology Division, National Center for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia, and also held an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Emory School of Medicine. Dr. Lopez was then recruited to Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, where he was Director and later Executive Director of Virology Research and Infectious Diseases Research. He has published over 130 articles, edited six books, organized nine international scientific meetings, has been selected to sit on six national panels, and has consulted for numerous organizations. Dr. Lopez is particularly recognized for three of his scientific contributions: the discovery and characterization of genetic resistance in mice to herpes simplex virus infections, his work I helping to describe AIDS, and his leadership of the Lilly research team responsible for the discovery of the HIV protease inhibitor Viracept. More recently, his interests have focused on stem cells as therapeutics in human disease.

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Bryon E. Petersen, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine
Medical Science Bldg
College of Medicine
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32610
(352) 392-6261
petersen@pathology.ufl.edu

Bryon Petersen earned the MS and PhD degrees in 1995 and i996, respectively, from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health. His research is focused on the molecular signals involved in the processes of liver development, growth and regeneration under both normal and carcinogenic conditions. Dr. Petersen is particularly interested in the function of hepatic oval stem cells in liver regeneration and their origin. He has published seminal papers showing that a portion of the oval cells come from the bone marrow, and is actively pursuing the molecular pathways involved in the recruitment of bone marrow cells to the injured liver and the signals required for differentiation. In addition, he is investigating the potential usefuness of stem cells as a vehicle for delivering genetic material for possible cell/gene therapy based treatments of hepatic metabolic disorders such as glycogen storage disease and Crigler-Najjar Syndrome. Dr. Petersen has been the recipient of several awards and honors, including Distinguished Lecturer of the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Korean Society of Endocrinology (2004), Keynote Lecturer for “Frontiers in Hepatology” at the Universty of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain (2001), and Distinguished Lecturer at the Nagoya University symposium “Asian Science Seminar on Animal Cell Technology” (2001) and the Japanese Hepatology Society symposium “13th Annual Seminars in Liver Regeneration” in Tokyo (2000). He is active in several international societies and currently holds committee appointments in AASLD and AACR, as well as permanent membership of the HBPP study section. Dr. Petersen sits on several scientific journal editorial boards and is currently the Associate Editor for the journal Cloning and Stem Cells.

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Simon J. Simonian, MD, ScD

Clinical Professor, Department of Surgery
Georgetown University Medical Center
Washington, DC
(301) 983-8856
sjsimonian@comcast.net

Simon J. Simonian received the BA degree from Oxford University in 1964 and the MD degree from University of London in 1967 and the ScD in Nutrition, Immunology and Genetics from Harvard University in 1969. He is the recipient of several other titles, including Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (1981), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons Edinboro (1962), Fellow of the American College of Phlebologists (2004), and honorary Doctor of Science from the National Academy of Sciences, Armenia (1998). Dr. Simonian is a respected teacher, mentor and innovator who is the author of 300 articles and three books spanning three pioneering careers in organ transplantation, immunology, and treatment of vascular disease. He was Chief of the Division of Division of Transplantation Immunology and Laboratory, Harvard Medical School and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (1968-1970), Professor of Surgery and Chief, Division of Renal Transplantation at Hahnemann University and Hospital (1978-1987), and President and CEO of the Vein Institute of Metropolitan Washington DC (1990-2006). He has served on numerous editorial and professional society boards. Dr. Simonian was Chief of Medical Team Support for Presidents Ronald Reagan (1988) and George H.W. Bush (1989). Georgetown University permanently endowed the Simonian Vein Center in 2006 and established the Annual Simonian Lecture in Venous Vascular Disease in 2007. Dr. Simonian’s research contributions include discovery of the genetic control of antibody formation in the rat, isolation of the IgG fraction of antilymphocyte serum to double the survival of human cadaveric renal allografts, and the covalent linkage of cytotoxic agents to proteins for the specific targeting of cancer cells.

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