Using CRISPR/Cas9 to Model Stem Cell Organization and Dynamics

Ruwanthi (Ru) Gunawardane, PhD, is the director of stem cells and gene editing at the Allen Institute for Cell Science, where a multi-disciplinary, team-science approach is used to study the fundamentals of cell behavior. Ru leads a group of researchers creating a collection of high-quality gene edited stem cell lines that are used by the institute to study cell organization and activities through live cell imaging and are also made available to the research community. Ru joined the Allen Institute after spending 5 years at Amgen, where she developed assays to screen for novel therapeutics in oncology, inflammation, and cardiovascular diseases and help advance the early drug discovery pipeline. Prior to Amgen, Ru worked at Ambit Biosciences as part of a small team of scientists that identified and characterized AC220, a potent FLT3 kinase inhibitor that is currently in phase 3 trials for AML. Ru obtained her PhD in Biology from Johns Hopkins University, where she studied microtubule nucleation in the Drosophila and Xenopus model systems. She conducted her postdoctoral work at the Harvard Medical School, where she studied cell migration and invasion in mammary epithelial cells using 3D tissue culture model systems as a model for breast cancer progression.

This webinar is part of our webinar series in the Pluripotent Learning Lounge, where key figures in the hPSC field discuss their recent research findings.