IRVING L. WEISSMAN is professor of pathology and developmental biology and is currently the director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and director of the Stanford Comprehensive Cancer Center at Stanford University, California, and has researched heavily the evolution of stem cells and progenitor cells, mainly those involved in blood forming and brain forming. This has also allowed him to work on programs to isolate and characterize rare cancer and leukemia stem cells, which have provided more scope to doctors dealing with oncology and the need to develop methods of attacking dangerous cells once they have been identified and isolated.

Weissman heads a laboratory at Stanford that has been focusing on developmental biology, self—renewal, and the homing and functions of the ...