William L. Stanford, Ph.D.

wstanford@ohri.ca

Senior Scientist, Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research, Regenerative Medicine Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (starting July 1, 2011)

Professor, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa

Research Interests

The focus of my laboratory is to understand and manipulate the behavior of pluripotent and somatic stem cells to understand mechanisms of human disease and develop novel therapeutics. Our research utilizes systems biology to tease apart cell behavior and pathophysiology. We often use pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) as a model stem cell system because they are easier to grow and manipulate in culture than somatic stem cells. In fact, pluripotent stem cells have become the “new yeast”, enabling researchers to analyze mammalian development at the transcriptome (mRNA & miRNA), proteome, methylome, etc. systems level. Of course, yeast do not encode miRNA so this is a critical difference supporting the use of human ESC research. Importantly, we are now combining these systems approaches to study human disease using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).  We believe such a systems genetics strategy will identify novel therapeutic targets and therapeutics for many diseases including cancer.  

This work complements our previous endeavors, which focused extensively on using the mouse as a model for human disease and generated novel gene trap vectors and a resource of more than 23,000 sequence annotated gene trap mouse embryonic stem cell lines that represents mutations in more than 4500 unique genes as well as numerous targeted clones as part of the CMHD and NorCOMM resources (http://www.norcomm.org/index.htm). This resource is freely available to academic researchers as part of the international mouse knockout project.

Note: Dr. Stanford is actively recruiting graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research staff for his lab.

Selected Publications

Cassar PA and WL Stanford. Integrating Post-Transcriptional Regulation into the Embryonic Stem Cell Gene Regulatory Network. J Cellular Physiology (Published Online April 18, 2011)

Hughes MR, N Anderson, S Maltby, Z Berberovic, J Wong, CL Birkenmeier, K Garcha, DJ Haddon, A Flenniken, LR Osborne, SL Adamson, J Rossant, L Peters, RF Paulson, C Wang, DL Barber, KM McNagny, and WL Stanford A novel ENU-generated truncation mutation lacking the spectrin-binding and C-terminal regulatory domains of Ank1 models severe, hemolytic hereditary spherocytosis. Experimental Hematology 39: 305-320, 2011

Walker E, J Manias, WY Chang, and WL Stanford. PCL2 modulates gene regulatory networks controlling self-renewal and commitment in embryonic stem cells. Cell Cycle 10: 45-51, 2011

Waese EYL and WL Stanford. One-Step Generation of Murine Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Mesoderm Progenitors and Chondrocytes in a Serum-Free Monolayer Differentiation System. Stem Cell Research 6: 34-49, 2011

Walker E, WY Chang, J Hunkapiller, G Cagney, K Garcha, J Torchia, N Krogan, J Reiter, and WL Stanford. Polycomb-like 2 Associates with PRC2 and Regulates Transcriptional Networks during Mouse Embryonic Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Differentiation. CELL Stem Cell 6:153-166, 2010

Hotta A, AYL Cheung, N Farra, K Garcha, WY Chang, WL Stanford, and J Ellis. EOS lentiviral vector selection system for human induced pluripotent stem cells. Nature Protocols 4: 1828-1844, 2009

Chang WY and WL Stanford. Translational Control: A New Dimension in Embryonic Stem Cell Network Analysis.  CELL Stem Cell. 2:410-412, 2008

Walker E, M Ohishi, RE Davey, W Zhang, PA Cassar, TS Tanaka, SD Der, Q Morris, TR Hughes, PW Zandstra, and WL Stanford. Predicting and Testing Novel Transcriptional Networks Regulating Embryonic Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Commitment. CELL Stem Cell 1: 71-86, 2007

Skarnes, WC, H von Melchner, W Wurst, G Hicks, AS Nord, T Cox, SG Young, P Ruiz, P Soriano, M Tessier-Lavigne, BR Conklin, WL Stanford, and J Rossant. A public gene trap resource for mouse functional genomics. Nature Genetics 36: 543-54, 2004

Bonyadi, M, SD Waldman, D Liu, JE Aubin, MD Grynpas, and WL Stanford. Mesenchymal Precursor Self-Renewal Deficiency Leads to Age-Dependent Osteoporosis in Sca-1/Ly-6A Null Mice. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100:5840-5845, 2003

Ito, CY, CYJ Li, A Bernstein, JE Dick, and WL Stanford.  Hematopoietic stem cell and progenitor defects in Sca-1/Ly-6A null mice. Blood, 101:517-523, 2003.

Stanford WL, JB Cohn, and SP Cordes.  Gene trap mutagenesis: past, present and beyond. Nature Rev. Genetics. 2: 756-768, 2001