Reeve, Colman to speak at conference

Actor Christopher Reeve, famous for his role as Superman before a horsing accident left him paralysed, will be one of the keynote speakers at a new conference on stem cells to be held in Melbourne in September.

Reeve, who now heads the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and champions stem cell research, will speak to the Stem Cells 2002 conference on a video hook-up to the US.

His fellow plenary speaker will be Dr Alan Colman, one of the team behind the successful cloning of Dolly, and now chief scientist at Australian company ES Cell International's Singapore lab.

Stem Cells 2002, to be held on September 18-19, aims to explore the commercial opportunities of stem cell research.

Organisers said the conference would be only event that brought together 27 of the key players in stem cell research in Australia.

Chaired by the Garvin Institute's Prof John Shine and NHMRC CEO Prof Alan Pettigrew, its other speakers include Prof Alan Trounson, CEO of the new Centre of Excellence in Stem Cells and Tissue Repair, BresaGen executive director Dr Chris Juttner, ES Cell International CEO Robert Klupacs, Biotechnology Australia executive GM Kerri Hartland, Gorm Kirsch of Macquarie Bank, Dr Jonathan Izant of the Garvan Institute, Dr Geoff Brooke of Rothschild Bioscience, Dr Carrie Hillyard of CM Capital, and Prof Marcus Vowels, head of the stem cell transplant program at the Australian Cord Blood Bank.

Among the streams to be covered at the event are new frontiers for stem cell technologies, stem cell use in drug discovery and regenerative repair, and commercial potential for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

The conference will also look at funding and regulatory affairs and the international landscape, and will feature nine medical case studies and a venture capital round-table.

Australian Biotechnology News is the official publication for the event.