Rachel Nordberg is a research associate at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focus is on the translation of cell therapy products with a particular emphasis on musculoskeletal tissue engineering. She earned her B.S. in Bioengineering from Lehigh University, before attending Cornell University for her M.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and North Carolina State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. In 2018, she began her postdoctoral research at the University of California, Irvine where she was awarded a three-year TL-1 NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship from the UCI Institute of Clinical and Translational Science. Takumi Takahashi is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Irvine. He earned his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego and his Ph.D. in Medicine from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Tokai University, Japan. In his postgraduate and postdoctoral work, his research has focused on translating scaffold-less approaches to cartilage tissue engineering for the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases such as osteoarthritis. He has experience in first-in-human clinical studies, conducted for the autologous and allogeneic transplantation of chondrocyte cell-sheets, and in preclinical studies using various small and large animal models. Jerry Hu is a principal development engineer at the University of California, Irvine. He obtained PhD in Bioengineering from Rice University and a BSc degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr Hu has over 15 years of experience in the study and development of materials, bioreactors, and culture methods for articular cartilage tissue engineering. Jerry has made significant contributions to the research of developing new approaches for cartilage tissue engineering, such as the formation of neotissue without a scaffold, the design and application of mechanical stimulators, and the acquisition of novel autologous cell sources. His direction and collaboration have led to numerous publications, presentations, and other accolades, including the filing of three patents as co-inventor. Kyriacos A. Athanasiou has addressed significant societal needs through the development of life-saving technologies. He is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine. In addition to being a faculty member in Biomedical Engineering, he is also the holder of the Henry Samueli Chair and the Director of DELTAi (Driving Engineering and Lifescience Translational Advances at Irvine). He has served as faculty member at the University of Texas, Rice University, and the University of California (first at Davis and now at Irvine). He has established one of the most recognized research groups in tissue engineering and regeneration.Prof. Athanasiou obtained his PhD in Bioengineering (Mechanical Engineering) from Columbia University in 1989. He has published over 800 peer-reviewed publications, including 380 papers, 360 conference proceedings or abstracts, 20 books, and multiple patents. He has also served as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and as the Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering and has received numerous awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2020 and the National Academy of Inventors in 2014.
