#heather main

Race horse trainer and opera singer finds horses respond best to her singing Mozart

This is a happy story, and don’t we all need those. I initially found the story on the BBC website HERE. It’s about opera singer and race horse trainer, Heather Main, singing Mozart to race horses in her training stables. The Daily Mirror has, for example, a four minute video interview with Heather – see HERE, in their report.  As with all happy stories many media outlets latched onto the story.…

First impressions of the US stem cell environment from an Aussie

By Heather Main

I moved to the San Diego from Australia in August 2015, and Paul asked me if I could write something on my first impressions of doing science in the US, as opposed to other countries I have worked/studied in (Australia, Scotland, Sweden and Singapore).

If you look at the land size of Australia and consider that we have only 7% of the US population you will understand directly that…

Are you going to the World Stem Cell Summit? Top reasons you should

By Heather Main

This year I will be attending the World Stem Cell Summit for the first time (see @WSCSummit on Twitter).

I was surprised when I looked at the program and recognized so few of the names of speakers; which made me question what this event was about, if not focused on stem cell research. This was a relatively naïve step from someone who has spent their entire academic career working…

Mini-bios on some top finalists for Stem Cell Person of the Year

By Heather Main

I was a little ashamed of myself that I didn’t know who half of the finalists were in Paul Knoepfler’s Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. I decided to look into it and find out what (or who) I have missed…..Interestingly, 3 of the 7 listed here are not scientists but instead are patients and/or patient advocates, showing the major impact these groups have on progression of our…

Stem Cells on the Mesa: Highlights from Heather Main

By Heather Main

Mesa, one of my first Spanish words since moving to California. The isolated flat-topped hill with steep sides where I have just had the pleasure of listening to some of the best basic and applied science. Mountains of various sorts formed the metaphor of CIRM 2.0 with Randy Mills(President/CEO of CIRM) describing the ‘giant boulder of love and happiness’ that academia pushes and…

What countries are ‘punching above their weight’ in stem cell space?

By Heather Main

When reading through the ISSCR 2015 program you can understand why everyone wants to go to the US for their postdoc as it seems like most of the work being presented is US-based. In fact, this is more than true with 78 of 156 speakers being USA based, a straight 50% of the program. Coming in second is Germany with 11 speakers. Being an Aussie I wanted to see how Australia stacked…

Monday morning musings: stem cell stocks, ISSCR, grants, CRISPR, New Book, & more

What’s on your mind on this Monday morning? Are you caffeinated enough yet? Depending on where you live it may even be time for dinner, bed, or already early Tuesday.

Here’s some musings…

To get safe and effective stem cell treatments to patients in a responsible, compliant manner you need commercial efforts and that in almost all cases means biotechs.

Doing this blog for 5+ years has made it…

Review of Biotech/Translational Talks #ISSCR2015: StemCells Inc, Semma, ViaCyte, & Le Blanc

By Heather Main

The path to the clinic is a slow and arduous activity, frustrating not only to the researcher and patient, but investors. Successful clinical translation of technologies requires a balance of science, streamlined translation and funding. To develop fantastic science and then realise the most important components cannot be adapted to the clinical environment is as disastrous as…