Presenter
Jean Hebert, BE Therapeutics
From as far back as he can remember, Jean Hebert has been fascinated by what we, as living creatures, are made of. When he learned early on that a single cell forms the whole human body following an innate genetic program, he became driven by how this process might be used to improve our biological fates and defeat aging. This interest led him to do a Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco, where with Dr. Gail Martin he studied the regulation of embryonic stem cell differentiation. Jean then moved to Stanford University for postdoctoral studies with Dr. Susan McConnell, where he focused on neural stem cells and how they generate the neocortex, the part of our brains that we use for our highest cognitive functions. Jean is a Professor in Neuroscience and Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and founder of BE Therapeutics, a company focused on cortical tissue replacement to reverse brain aging.
Summary:
With the goal of spurring discussion, the talk will present arguments for why replacement strategies at the tissue level or greater overcome limitations of non-replacement strategies in beating aging. A broad overview of replacement approaches will then be provided to compare and contrast the pros and cons of each, with a special focus on the brain, which remains our greatest challenge.
Greatest challenge:
Although much progress is being made for neocortical tissue replacement, other parts of the brain are lagging behind.
Slides:
