Top 10 Stem Cell Conferences

Each year, companies must decide on the best stem cell conferences and events to attend, among the dozens that are offered across North America, Europe, Asia, and to a lesser degree, other regions worldwide. This is a major decision, because attending stem cell conferences requires a significant investment of time, energy, and resources.

Therefore, this post is your guide to identifying some of the top stem cell conferences worldwide.

Top Stem Cell Conferences

In late 2015, the BioInformant team attended the World Stem Cell Summit in Atlanta, GA, which was an incredible stem cell conference. This year in 2016, the stem cell conference is being held in West Palm Beach, FL, on December 6-9, 2016.

The event features 1,200 attendees representing from more than 40 countries.  Impressively, there are also up to seven speaker tracks occuring at a time. Because of the shear volume of the content being shared, you can choose targeted content suited to your specific interests.

In addition to the concurrent speaker tracks, there are also Expert Luncheon Roundtables, Investor Presentations, a Stem Cell Actions Award Dinner, and 1-on-1 networking opportunities.

For this reason, the World Stem Cell Summit event gets our honor of being the “Top Stem Cell Conference of the Year.”  It is an event that I highly recommend that every stem cell industry participant experience at least once in their lifetime.

To learn more about this event, click here to see the Top 10 Quotes from Day 1 of the conference or Gems Shared During Day 2.

Noteworthy Stem Cell Conferences

We were also impressed by the Perinatal Stem Cell Conference held in Aspen, CO, over March 3-5, 2106. This is another exceptional event, because it attracts a targeted group of stem cell industry enthusiasts curious about perinatal stem cell types, such as stem cells found within cord blood and tissue, as well as those located within the placental, amnion, and chorion.

Additionally, our team enjoys the “Cell and Gene Therapy” and “Stem Cells In Vitro” conferences hosted by Phacilitate in Washington, DC. While affected by a giant snowfall this year, it is a huge industry event and attracts a global base of stem cell industry participants. The organizers are also top-notch, praise that I do not give lightly.

This year, there is another special event is on the agenda, “10 Years of iPSCs.” In 2006, Drs. Yamanaka and Takahashi announced the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in the journal Cell. Over the decade that followed, iPSCs became a staple within the stem cell community, used as research reagents, preclinical tools, and potential therapeutic agents within cell therapy applications.

Criteria for Assessing Top 10 Stem Cell Conferences

Clearly, we think all of the conferences above are valuable and important stem cell conferences to attend.  However, there dozens of other stem cell industry events each year that are either directly or indirectly related to stem cells.

For this reason, you can see our top 10 favorite stem cell conferences below, as well as the criteria that we used to select them.

Criteria Used to Determine Top Stem Cell Conferences

• Total attendee count
• Specificity of content to the stem cell field
• Attendance by major stem cell industry players, including key companies and thought-leaders
• Reputation of conference organizer
• Diversity of attendees by geographic region
• Diversity of attendees by type of industry participant (commercial, clinical, scientific, academic, and non-profit)
• Availability of networking (1-on-1) opportunities
• My personal experience at the stem cell conference

1. “Cell and Gene Therapy” and “Stem Cells In Vitro” by Phacilitate – Jan 25-27, 2016 (Washington, DC)
2. 6th World Congress on Cell & Stem Cell Research – Feb 29 – March 2, 2016 (Philadelphia, PA)
3. Perinatal Stem Cell Conference – March 2-4, 2016 (Aspen, CO)
4. 5th Stem Cell Product Development & Commercialization Conference – April 26-27, 2016 (Boston, MA)
5. World Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine Congress – May 18-19, 2016 (London, UK), held in conjunction with the World Cord Blood Congress Europe 2016 – May 18-19, 2016 (London, UK)
6. International Society for Cell Therapy (ISCT) 2016 – May 25-28, 2016 (Singapore)
7. ISSCR 2016 – June 22-25, 2016 (San Francisco, CA)
8. 10 Years of iPSCs – September 25-26, 2016 (Berkeley, CA)
9. Changing the Face of Modern Medicine: Stem Cells and Gene Therapy – October 18-21, 2016 (Florence, Italy)
10. World Stem Cell Summit 2016 – Dec 6-8, 2016 (West Palm Beach, FL)