Valentina Greco takes on new position as President of the ISSCR

The ISSCR is thrilled to announce Valentina Greco, Yale School of Medicine, Genetics Department and Yale Stem Cell Center USA, as its President. Her term began at the ISSCR 2024 Annual Meeting held in Hamburg, Germany that concluded on Saturday, 13 July 2024.

“I am honored to be taking on the role of ISSCR President for the coming year,” Dr. Greco said. “Building on Amander Clark’s efforts, my focus will be on people and scrutinizing processes so that they better support the diversity of needs of our members across identities including geographies and career stages. In turn this will increase opportunities for professional growth of our members and augment our collective impact. As I commit to this vision, I equally commit to speak with openness about the struggles that we have and will experience in order to make this vision a reality,” Dr. Greco added.

Valentina Greco was born in Palermo, Italy on 3 September 1972. She earned an undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology at the University of Palermo, Italy (1996) where she studied the role of tumor suppressors in cell cycle using in vitro system in the lab of Aldo Di Leonardo (1995-1998), her first academic research experience. She was accepted by Suzanne Eaton and the EMBL/MPI-CBG PhD program, Germany (1998-2002) and fell in love with microscopy and the power of developmental biology using fly wing imaginal disc as a model system to understand epithelial cell communication. Dr. Greco subsequentially completed a post-doc training in the Fuchs lab at the Rockefeller University (2003-2009) where she learned about the mammalian skin hair follicle as model system for stem cell driven regeneration. She was then hired as an Assistant Professor in the Genetics department at Yale School of Medicine by Richard Lifton and Haifan Lin (1 August 2009).

Dr. Greco is currently the Carolyn Walch Slayman Professor of Genetics as well as the Co-chair of Status of Women in Medicine (SWIM) at the Yale School of Medicine. She and members of her lab feel excited about visual driven research to study how cells behave in a living mouse. The team understands cell behaviors as an expression of the architectures and principles that govern the tissues these cells inhabit, much like human behaviors are an expression of the systems and structures in which they are embedded (e.g. a lab, an organization). The Greco lab is passionate about identifying the mechanisms that govern communication and cooperation to sustain function over a lifetime.

Dr. Greco has served in numerous leadership roles in the scientific community including many within the ISSCR over the last decade. She also serves on numerous additional boards including President Elect for the Society of Investigative Dermatology (SID), SID Board member 2016-2020, Member of the National Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Advisory Council (NAMSAC (2022-2024)), Member of the Yale Ciencia Academy Advisory Committee, Member of the 2030STEM Leadership Team and Secretary of Board of Directors of the Life Science Editors Foundation (2020-2023).

Greco lab research has been recognized by numerous accolades awarded to both lab members and Dr. Greco. She in particular has received the 2014 Women in Cell Biology Junior Award (WICB) for Excellence in Research from the American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB), the 2014 ISSCR (International Society for Stem Cell Research) Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the 2015 Robertson Stem Cell Investigator Award from the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), the 2015 Mallinckrodt Scholar Award, the 2016 Early Career Award from the American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB), the 2016 HHMI Faculty Scholar Award, the 2017 Glenn Foundation Award, the 2017 Class of ‘61 Award by the Yale Cancer Center, the 2019 NIH DP1 Pioneer Award and the 2021 ISSCR Momentum Award. Dr. Greco finds it particularly meaningful to have received the 2018 Yale Mentoring Award in the Natural Sciences, the 2019 Yale Genetic Department Mentoring Award, the 2019 Yale Post-doc Mentoring Award.

The ISSCR is equally pleased to announce Hideyuki Okano, MD, PhD, Keio University, Japan is President-elect and will serve as president officially starting 1 July 2025. Lorenz Studer, MD, founding director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and member of the Developmental Biology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA, is the new Vice President.

The following three members are newly elected to the ISSCR Board of Directors and beginning their three-year term: Jacqueline Barry, PhD, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, UK, Tenneille E. Ludwig, PhD, WiCell, USA, and Thomas A. Rando, MD, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.

The following members are starting their second, three-year term as a result of the 2024 election: Melissa Carpenter, PhD, Carpenter Consulting Corporation, USA, Malin Parmar, PhD, Lund University, Sweden, and Mitinori Saitou, MD, PhD, Kyoto University, Japan.

Learn more about the ISSCR Board of Directors.

About the International Society for Stem Cell Research
With nearly 5,000 members from more than 80 countries, the International Society for Stem Cell Research is the preeminent global, cross-disciplinary, science-based organization dedicated to stem cell research and its translation to the clinic. The ISSCR mission is to promote excellence in stem cell science and applications to human health. Additional information about stem cell science is available at AboutStemCells.org, an initiative of the Society to inform the public about stem cell research and its potential to improve human health.

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