CBB and WIN Joint Industry Seminar: Advances of Stem Cell Biotechnology for Development of Bio-artificial Human Heart

Please join the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology on Monday, September 20, 2019 for a industry seminar by Professor Ronald Li, Co-founder and CEO of Novoheart. He will be speaking on "Advances of Stem Cell Biotechnology for Development of Bio-artificial Human Heart".

Professor Ronald Li is the co-founder and CEO of Novoheart, a global stem cell biotechnology company dual-listed on the Toronto and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges. Novoheart pioneers an array of next-generation human heart tissue prototypes and is the first company in the world to have engineered miniature living human heart pumps that can revolutionize drug discovery, helping to save time and money for developing new therapeutics. Also known as 'human heart-in-a-jar', Novoheart’s bio-artificial human heart constructs are created using state-of-the-art and proprietary stem cell and bioengineering approaches and are utilized by drug developers for accurate preclinical testing as to the effectiveness and safety of new drugs, maximizing the successes in drug discovery whilst minimizing costs and harm caused to patients.

Professor Ronald Li (BSc ’94) is Director of the Ming-Wai Lau Center for Reparative Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Hong Kong. Additionally, he is affiliated with the Dr. Li Dak-Sum Center for Regenerative Medicine at Hong Kong University (HKU). Professor Li launched his research career as an Assistant Professor at John Hopkins University (JHU). During his tenure at JHU, Prof Li was a 2-time recipient of the Top Young Faculty Award (2002, 2004), Top Prize for Young Investigator Basic Research (2001) and Top Postdoctoral Fellow Helen Tausig Award (2001) of JHU Medicine. Later, as Associate Professor at the University of California Davis, he founded the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Consortium. He subsequently joined the Icahn School of Medicine, Mt Sinai, as co-director of Cardiovascular Cell & Tissue Engineering. In 2010 Professor Li became the founding director of the Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine Consortium at HKU. 

Professor Li has published over 150 research articles and received numerous accolades, including the American Heart Association (AHA)'s Best Study of 2005 and Ground-breaking Study of 2006, Young Investigator Award from the Heart Rhythm Society (2002), and the Career Development Award from the Cardiac Arrhythmias Research & Education Foundation (2001). In 2017 he was recognized with University of Waterloo Alumni Award.