We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Duncan Liew has joined the UCR Stem Cell Center as the Academic Coordinator for the Stem Cell Core. Dr. Liew has extensive experience with human embryonic stem cell biology. After graduating with 1st class honors from the University of Putra Malaysia, he received his Ph.D training at the University of Sheffield in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Andrews. He then did two years of postdoctoral work in Dr. Andrews’ lab before moving to UCI where he held a CIRM Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. Peter Donovan from 2007 through 2009.

While working at the University of Sheffield, Dr. Liew published 6 papers in the field of stem cell biology. These papers cover a broad and exciting range of topics including the differentiation of cytotrophoblast stem cell lines from human embryonic stem cells, transfection of human embryonic stem cells, dendrite differentiation from embryonic stem cells, and ß-cell differentiation. While working with Dr. Peter Donovan at UC Irvine, Dr. Liew began working on the differentiation of primordial germ cells from embryonic stem cells and the role of BLIMP in this process. He has made significant progress in this interesting area which he presented earlier this year in a seminar at UCR.

Dr. Liew will be the manager of the new Stem Cell Core Facility which will begin microscope training this week. During the next several months, Dr. Liew will be involved in completing equipment acquisition for the Core, going through training classes for the new equipment, and setting up the culture facilities for experiments with human embryonic stem cells. Dr. Liew has also won a travel award to visit Japan for two weeks in the early fall to learn procedures for making pluripotent stem cells, which will be very beneficial to UCR scientists.

When the Core is fully open, which will be late October or early November, Dr. Liew will be available for training researchers on the Core instrumentation, helping with stem cell experiments, and over seeing the general operation of the Core Facility.