Professor and Director
McLean Hospital/Harvard University
Kwang-Soo Kim Ph.D. is a Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at McLean Hospital, and also the Masson Family Endowed Scholar at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has over 30 years of experience investigating the midbrain dopamine neuronal systems in health and disease, leading to the identification of the orphan nuclear receptor Nurr1 as a promising molecular target to treat Parkinson’s disease (PD) and to the foundation of NurrON pharma (https://nurronpharma.com/) which is currently performing the Phase I clinical trial for a drug candidate. In addition, Dr. Kim focuses on furthering our understanding of somatic cell reprogramming and differentiation, allowing him to establish a platform of key technologies propelling the development of personalized cell therapy for PD using patients’ own cells. Based on these progresses, his team obtained FDA approval, leading to successful treatment of the first PD patient in 2017 (Schweitzer et al., 2020, NEJM), which has recently been selected as one of 25 major discoveries in stem cell research by the International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) in 2022 (Lendahl, 100 plus years of stem cell research-20 years of ISSCR, Stem Cell Reports, 2022, 17:1248). His team is further advancing how to improve the survival of transplanted dopamine neurons and the efficacy of cell therapy by elucidating the role of host’s innate immune response to surgical procedure (Park et al., 2023, Nature) and has recently obtained the FDA approval for Phase I/IIa clinical trial for autologous cell therapy of PD.
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Autologous Cell Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease: From Bench to Bed and from Bed to Bench
Thursday, June 20, 2024
8:30 AM – 9:00 AM PT
