Fran Ligler, Lampe Disgintuished Professor in Biomedical Engineering, was recently quoted in an article in Nature Medicine. In the article by Ellie Dolgin, “Better Standards Sought for Range of Stem Cells Entering the Clinic,” Dr. Ligler comments upon the necessity of developing a metric for evaluating stem cells as they advance into cellular therapies. As the head of the National Research Council’s committee tasked with evaluating the Materials Measurements Laboratory (MML) in the National Institute for Standards and Technology, Dr. Ligler noted that “Researchers need to have metrics that work across labs and across countries.” Anne Plant, a scientist involved in creating a universal metric to evaluate stem cells, hopes that developing these standards will translate into “more robust in vitro predictions of how stem cell-based therapies will behave in the human body.”
The full article, published in the August 2014 version, can be read on Nature Medicine’s website.