GORDON KELLER

Dr. Gordon M. Keller is the Director of the McEwen Stem Cell Institute at the University Health Network, a Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, a Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, and holds the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Embryonic Stem Cell Biology. Dr. Keller received his PhD in Immunology at the University of Alberta in 1979 and completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto in 1983. He subsequently held scientist positions in Switzerland, Austria and the United States before returning to Canada as the inaugural director of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine in 2007.

Dr. Keller’s research for the past three decades has centered on understanding the regulatory pathways that control the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to different cell types in the Petri dish.  The long-term goal of this work is to produce functional human cells that can be used to develop new cell-based therapies to treat  a range of degenerative diseases.  Over the years, Dr. Keller’s lab has pioneered the use of developmental biology guided strategies to generate different types of blood cells, heart cells, liver cells, pancreatic cells and cartilage-forming cells from human pluripotent stem cells. His research program is currently focussed on testing some of these different cell types in pre-clinical models of human disease. Dr. Keller has 158 peer-reviewed publications and 43 non-peer reviewed publications.

Over his career, Dr. Keller has been the recipient of notable honours and awards. The most recent (2019) is the prestigious Ogawa-Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize from the Gladstone Institute for his pioneering work on guiding the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into multiple cell types. In 2017, he was awarded the Inventor of the Year at UHN.  From 2005 to 2006, Dr. Keller served as President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, and is currently a member of its board of directors (ex-officio).

Dr. Keller has numerous commercialization endeavours. He holds over 20 patents and 8 patent licenses. He is a scientific co-founder of BlueRock Therapeutics ($1B), a biotechnology company focussed on developing pluripotent stem cell-based therapies to treat heart failure and Parkinson’s disease. He currently serves as a scientific advisor for the company. Additionally, Dr. Keller is a member of the scientific advisory board of VistaGen Therapeutics and a member of board of Anagenesis Biotechnologies.