Verfaillie, Catherine

CATHERINE VERFAILLIE IS a full professor in the Department of Oncology at Katholieke Universit—eit Leuven in Belgium, where she leads the Stamcel Instituut te Leuven. From 1996 to 2006, she was the director of the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota. Much of her research has focused on stem cell biology, including the proliferation, differentiation, and lineage commitment of healthy embryonic cells. During her tenure at the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, she and her team also evaluated a number of therapies for congenital disorders such as hemophilia, along with cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and ischémie disorders, disorders of the liver and pancreas, and chronic myelogenous leukemia.

In 2002, Verfaillie published what was viewed as a groundbreaking study in Nature on multipo—tent adult progenitor cells, ...