James Thomson (cell biologist)

James A. Thomson (born in Oak Park, Illinois) is an American developmental biologist who also serves as a professor of anatomy in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and and as the chief pathologist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

Education

Thomson graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. in biophysics at the University of Illinois in 1981. He then entered the Veterinary Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his doctorate in veterinary medicine in 1985, and his doctorate in molecular biology in 1988. His doctoral thesis, conducted under the supervision of Davor Solter at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, PA, involved understanding genetic imprinting in early mammalian development.

Dr. Thomson joined the University of Wisconsin after spending two years as a post-doctoral research fellow in the Primate In Vitro Fertilization and Experimental Embryology Laboratory at the Oregon National Primate Research Center.

Current Employment

In addition to being a member of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Thomson is currently the scientific director at WiCell Research Institute, Inc.. WiCell is the spinoff company of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) charged with licensing Thomson's patented stem cells. He is also a member of the Genome Center of Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Thomson's Research

Since joining the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, he has conducted pioneering work in the isolation and culture of non-human primate and human embryonic stem cells, undifferentiated cells that have the ability to become any of the cells that make up the tissues of the body. Dr. Thomson directed the group that reported the first isolation of embryonic stem cell lines from a non-human primate in 1995, work that led his group to the first successful isolation of human embryonic stem cell lines in 1998.

On November 6, 1998, Science published the results of his research, "Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts". Thomson's research was not subject of any federal funds, but sparked a debate about the ability of the National Institute of Health's ability to fund human embryonic stem cell research.

Both the non-human primate and human embryonic stem cells issued as patents. The patents were assigned to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Since the primate stem cells were funded with a federal grant, the Federal government has a non-exclusive, non-transferable paid up license under the Bayh-Dole Act. The human embryonic stem cells were funded privately by Geron Corp. and by a grant from WARF. Geron now has an exclusive license to six of the cell lines.

After the patent issued for human embryonic stem cells, Time put Thomson on the cover, The Man Who Brought You Stem Cells.

Other information

Thomson's patents

Human Embryonic Stem Cells, 2001,
Primate Embryonic Stem Cells, 1998,
Hematopoietic Differentiation of Pluripotent hESCs, 2001
Method of Making Embryoid Bodies from Primate Embryonic Stem Cells, 2003
Hematopoietic Differentiation of Pluripotent hESCs, 2003
Method of In Vitro Differentiation of Transplantable Neural Precursor Cells from Primate Embryonic Stem Cells, 2005

External links

University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School (University of Wisconsin)
Department of Anatomy (University of Wisconsin)
Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center (University of Wisconsin)
"Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts"

Year of birth missing | American biologists | University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty