printable versionFaculty Senate minutes - March 5, 2009 meeting
The Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL
FORTY-FIRST SENATE Report No. 6SUMMARY OF ACTIONS, MAR. 5
At its meeting on Thursday, March 5, 2009 the Forty-first Senate of the Academic Council heard reports..
REX L. JAMISON, M.D. Academic Secretary to the University Minutes, MAR. 5 I. Call to OrderHarvey Cohen, the Deborah E. Addicott - John A. Kriewall and Elizabeth A. Haehl Family Professor in Pediatrics, and Vice Chair of the Senate, presiding in place of Professor Karen Cook, who was away, called the Senate to order at 3:20 PM.
Present were 28 faculty members of the Senate and 12 ex officio members
Chair Cohen began by welcoming our newest ex officio member of the Senate, Persis Drell, Director of SLAC and Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics. He was glad she was here, he said, because if the particle physics people can't figure out what we're doing in the world we're in trouble.
[Applause]
II. Approval of Minutes - (SenD#6185)The Minutes of the Senate Meeting, February 19, 2009, were approved.
III. Action CalendarThere were no items on the Action Calendar.
IV. Standing ReportsA. Memorial Resolutions:
Chair Cohen welcomed Professor Charles Steele to present a memorial statement in honor of his colleague, George Herrmann, emeritus professor of Mechanical Engineering in the School of Engineering.
George Herrmann (1921-2007) SenD#6183
George Herrmann, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering, collapsed and died suddenly in a Zurich train station on January 7, 2007. He was 85. He served as chair of the Department of Applied Mechanics and then, after the department merged with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as chair of the Division of Applied Mechanics. He received numerous awards from professional societies, including election to the National Academy of Engineering and the Centennial Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was the founding editor of the International Journal of Solids and Structures and built it into one of the most reputable journals in the field. He was fluent in six languages, and left a wide circle of former students, colleagues, and friends the world around.
Mr. Chair, I have the honor, on behalf of a committee consisting of Professor David Barnett, Professor Peter Pinsky, and myself, to lay before the Senate of the Academic Council a Resolution in memory of the late George Herrmann, Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the School of Engineering.
All present stood in silent tribute.
Chair Cohen thanked Professors Steele, Pinsky and Barnett.
The full text of the Memorial Resolution will be published in the next Stanford Report, March 11th.
B. Steering Committee
The Senate meeting, April 2, 2009, has been cancelled.
April 16th is the date for the first Senate meeting in the Spring Quarter. The agenda will include reports from Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity Pat Jones on the status of women faculty and faculty gains and losses, and from Vice Provost for Graduate Studies Patricia Gumport on graduate students and graduate programs.
On April 30th Dean of Education Deborah Stipek will present a report on K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) issues. This meeting will be brief to enable the Senators to attend the Annual Meeting of the Academic Council in Cubberley Auditorium. The agenda for that meeting will be announced soon.
On May 14th Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education John Bravman will report on undergraduate student issues.
On May 28th Provost Etchemendy will present the annual Budget Report. Following adjournment, the Senate will reconvene in Executive Session.
C. Committee on Committees (CoC)
There was no report from the CoC.
D. President's Report
Chair Cohen asked President Hennessy if he had a report. He did not and deferred to the Provost for his comments. There were no questions for the president.
Provost's Report
Chair Cohen invited Provost Etchemendy to give his report.
"I have an update and an announcement, both having to do with the budget. As you know…we started the budget process in November…We asked all the units to provide us with three scenarios of budget cuts at the 5% level, 7% level, and 10% level in the context of a two-year, 15% budget reduction.
"As those of you—other than those who live in caves—know, the economic situation has deteriorated since November, and continues to look quite bleak. And as a result…the budget projections have also deteriorated. The budget process is coming close to an end; the Budget Office is now preparing the budget letters that will go out to all of the units explaining what the decisions were.
"…as an update, I wanted to tell you where we ended up. We have concluded we need to take as close to $100 million as possible out of the General Funds budget. If you recall, that is roughly equivalent to [what] we had expected to take out of the budget the next two years—the fiscal year 10 and fiscal year 11 budgets…We need to take that as much as possible in fiscal year 10. To do that… we have to ask units to take closer to 15% budget cuts in fiscal year 10…this is close to twice what we had in our minds when we sent out the letters in November...
"The announcement [is that] in order to achieve the kinds of reduction that we need, we decided we have to impose a salary freeze for fiscal year 10. I don't think that comes as any surprise or shock to most people. In fact, many of the units had already voluntarily decided that they would be taking a [salary] freeze to minimize staff layoffs...It will be a university-wide salary freeze, that will apply to the nonformula schools, to the formula schools, to SLAC, all across the board.
"As with any salary freeze, it is not 100%. We will have in the salary pool enough to provide salary increases for people who receive promotions during the year. It would be extremely unfair for an assistant professor to be promoted to tenure, and because he or she had the bad luck to be promoted in a bad budget year, not to receive the increase that the promotion normally [entails].
"We're also including enough funds [to supplement the payments] that many faculty—particularly relatively recent arrivals—[receive] from the Housing Assistance Program. That is a program that over the course of nine years has a declining supplement to one's salary. If the base salary is frozen, and the supplement declines, one would receive an actual cut in salary. To prevent that, we will not allow the housing payments to decline during fiscal year 10. [Those affected] will receive the same amount they received at the end of fiscal year 09 in the summer, and that way, [there will not be a net decline in] their salaries. At the end of the year, the [supplement reduction] will resume by the standard amount.
"We made this decision [regarding salaries] to minimize the number of layoffs... But…there will be a number of layoffs in the course of the next several months, as we try to achieve a fiscal year 10 budget."
Chair Cohen, commenting," That was not unexpected. Are there comments or thoughts?"
There was complete silence.
Provost Etchemendy, looking around, said, "Let the record show there was stunned silence."
[Laughter]
That was too much for Professor Hank Greely: "You can't goad us like that. For those of us keeping score at home, how strongly correlated is our endowment with the overall stock market? I know the overall stock market basically is a fraction of the endowment, but is it a decent rule of thumb to think that if the market goes down 10% we probably lost another 10% of our endowment?"
The provost replied, "Normally, our endowment is not strongly correlated with public equities [because] we have a very diversified endowment…The unfortunate thing here is that, yes, we're seeing basically 100% correlation [because] all of those categories [of asset allocations] are going down…I can't speak to whether 10% of the stock market translates into 10% of the endowment; Probably not exactly.
Professor Greely drove it home: "But we have no reason other than wishful thinking to think that the endowment is still well within market conditions?" —to which the provost assented.
President Hennessy added, "Like many other institutions that invest endowment on a scale, we have a lot of our assets in illiquid asset classes. It is quite difficult to predict the value of those assets right now. If you have to sell them, as some of our peers have tried to do, you would take a haircut that would leave you looking like somebody about to enter the armed forces. Obviously, our goal would be not to sell those assets at subpar value. But I think that means it can take a number of years before we can realize reasonable returns or even minimal losses on those assets. That's the unpredictability that exists. It just takes a long time...I think assuming that we might be a little better than the market—but we're not in a completely different territory—is probably a good operating assumption."
Professor Ralph Horwitz observed, "Some of our peer institutions have found themselves so cash-strained they've had to enter into bid markets to try to get the liquidity they need to meet obligations. Are we in any similar kind of circumstances?
Provost Etchemendy shook his head, "Certainly not in any desperate way…Some universities have found themselves in a position where they have extreme liquidity issues, to the extent that they have had to borrow money to fund operations—not because they're broke, but because so much of their remaining assets are in illiquid advance placement…We are not in any danger of not being able to run operations...It is an interesting question that we have considered— whether or not it would be a good idea to issue some debt in order to increase liquidity and just have that as a cushion. But if we did, it would be more of a cushion than a desperate measure."
Professor Al Camarillo said to the provost, "We heard from you about the hiring freeze some time ago and I think all of us anticipated it. In the worst case scenario, probably most of us would have anticipated some layoffs. I assume you and your human resources staff are [planning layoffs] now. Do you know how deep they will be?"
The provost replied, "These decisions are being made unit by unit first of all, and announcements will be made unit by unit. In fact, many units in the Graduate School of Business did [just that, around] January 15th. …They announced a number of layoffs—on the order of about 50 people. The Department of Athletics also had layoffs and informed the individuals in question."
Professor Camarillo clarified, "So you're allowing each unit to figure out what's necessary to reach that 15% market?"
The provost said that was correct.
Professor Jonathan Bendor reminded the provost that when he was talking about 5%, 7%, and 10% cuts, he had shown a graph illustrating the large growth in staff throughout the university and noted this was in part an opportunity to make reductions we should have made years ago.
Professor Bendor continued, "Now, the economic news is bad enough where we are looking at 15% cuts. So it seems there is good reason to worry that we're well beyond just making cuts that we should have made years ago. So I'll ask a variant of the question I've asked before, which is—could you imagine an economic scenario bad enough that you and the President would want to reconsider whether or not the smoothing formula is smoothing enough?"
Provost Etchemendy replied, "In a downturn of this sort, the drop is so severe that no smoothing formula is going to protect you. Indeed, the smoothing formula simply lets you down more [easily]. If your endowment drops by say, a third, eventually your payout has got to drop that much. The quicker you pull your current payout down, the less damage do you do to the corpus of your endowment, and the more long term benefit you will get. So it's not clear how much of a smoothing you want to have. Because by smoothing, you're spending money you don't have, and the ultimate effect is one of a longer impact—indeed a perpetual impact—the money that you spent is money that you didn't have, that will now not pay out to future generations.
"So one question we have to ask [ourselves] is whether or not the current smoothing rule is smoothing too much, and whether in fact, by smoothing…we are hurting the budget in fiscal year 11 and fiscal year 12 more than we're comfortable with. So yes, we have considered the smoothing rule—but in some ways the opposite way that I think you would spend it."
Chair Cohen thanked the provost and suggested that we would hear more from the provost when he presents the Annual Budget Report. The provost confirmed that it would be in May.
V. Other ReportsA. Update on New Facilities in the School of Medicine and How They will Transform Research and Education (SenD#6192)
Chair Cohen, introduced Philip Pizzo, Dean of the School Medicine, who, with colleagues, Irv Weissman, Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research, Professor of Developmental Biology &, by courtesy, of Biology, and Renee A. Reijo Pera, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, to describe some of the school's new facilities and how they will affect research and education.
Also in attendance was Kathryn Gillam, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
Dean Pizzo thanked Chair Cohen and began his introduction with the aid of slides.
"I was contacted last fall by Karen Cook [Senate Chair] who asked about a follow-up to the presentation we had made [to the Senate] about the Medical School a year and a half ago, where I presented some of our long-term plans for the facilities and programs. Now [she wanted to know] what's really happening there; what's going to go into all of those buildings that is so exciting?
"So I am here today to give you a quick update. I didn't expect that the acting chair of the meeting and the secretary would both be medical school faculty.
[Laughter]
But on that understanding, let me share with you where we are.
"First and foremost, the plans that are currently underway are part of a long-term strategic plan to build on…and couple buildings to activities. The other important part of [our plan] is to try to harmonize better the way the Medical School facilities are coordinated. Till now they have really been quite opportunistically—and some might say chaotically—constructed. This master plan of just the Medical School is, in the long run—and in all fairness, that the long run looks longer than it did when I made the presentation earlier—designed to create some contiguity."
A slide was projected of the plan of school of medicine as a rectangular area with Campus Drive at the bottom and curling around the Clark Center on the right side up to Roth Way. The left side was bounded by Welch Road up to Pasteur Drive. The Drive formed the top of the area as far as the Bowell Clinic section of the present medical school building, and, if it cut through the building, would connect directly with Roth Way.
The Dean focused on three areas, the Li Ka Shing Center next to the Beckman Center, the loading dock on Campus Drive next to the Medical School Office Building, and the Lorry Lokey Stem Cell Research Building on the other side of the loading dock along Campus Drive West.
"By way of reference, this is the Clark Center. And here, not shown, is where the current Medical School building exists, a 50-year-old stone complex built in 1959, which ultimately will be replaced by three buildings which we're calling the Foundations in Medicine, 1, 2 and 3. That will permit us to serially deconstruct these buildings and replace them with modern facilities.
"The overall plan exists in phases. We're currently in the first phase, which includes three projects. One is a new loading dock. I only mention that because it cost $50 million and provides all the infrastructure for our buildings. The second is…called the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge [LKSC], and [the third is] what we originally called the Stanford Institutes of Medicine, but is now known as the Lorry Lokey Stem Cell Research Building.
"Just for reference, the Business School is rebuilding itself in its entirety for about $350 million. We are building Phase 1—our famous loading dock, and these two buildings—for the same amount of money. [That] just underscores the expense that goes into construction of laboratory facilities like this."
FIGURE ONE
The Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge
The next slide was a recent picture of the LKSC under construction side by side with a projected illustration of how it would look when finished (Figure one).
"I want to quickly share you with you a little bit about the Learning and Knowledge Center… This building will be a state-of-the-art facility for medical students, graduate students and postgraduate education. It has five floors. The ground floor contains the Goodman Simulation Center, which will be a state-of-the-art center for virtual reality and learning simulation technologies of all kinds and shapes. We're basically building hospital facilities that will be totally simulated in this [Center].
"The first floor will begin with a local bookstore and a cafe and then have two classrooms that have organized seating and state-of-the-art technologies. On every floor of this building are various classrooms that are completely flexible and designed for the future. They're all collapsible into various sizes and shapes that will allow us to adapt our education to [any] modalities that take place in the future.
"The second floor will be a major conference center. This building is on the site of our former conference facility. This one will be more flexible. It will seat 350 people using telescoping seating that comes out from walls in an auditorium-like seating that's divisible into three compartments, so we can use it for either a large event, or three small events, where the seats can be folded back, and it can serve as a ballroom or gathering room.
"The third floor will have flexible classrooms, as well as our deans' offices that will be in the back part of this building…On the fourth floor there will be facilities for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students that will include an athletic facility that will be run by the Athletics Department. [That floor] has the best view in the entire building, purposefully, so the students will be the beneficiaries. It will have small functional rooms in which they can work and study.
"Because we are moving away from the traditional library facility, the Knowledge Center right now is going to be completely digital. In fact, our library today is over 90% digitized. As we move forward, we are envisioning that will be the case, virtually totally."
Lorry Lokey Stem Cell Research Building
"...The next phase of the building project underway is what we originally called the Stanford Institute of Medicine 1 Building, but [now called] the Lorry Lokey Stem Cell Research Building. This is a cooperative effort between Lorry Lokey, who is the major donor for this building, coupled with a significant grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) that has allowed a public-private partnership for this $200 million building to be constructed.
"This construction is underway on a very rapid [schedule], probably breaking all records, but staying at or below cost. It needs to be completed in two years. That's the mandate from CIRM, and we're meeting that objective. It is a fascinating architectural effort that's using three-dimensional design to construct on the fly—meaning in real time—with all parts carefully coordinated.
"This is the facility that will house the Stem Cell Institute that Irv Weissman [directs]. I'm going to ask Irv to give a very brief overview of this… He will be followed by Renee Pera, who is going to talk about some of [her] work on embryonic stem cell development. [Then] Irv will…come back to talk about the cancer stem cell program."
Background of the Stem Cell Institute
Professor Weissman began his presentation:
"Stem cells are cells that, when they divide, make two daughter cells. One of them is a stem cell. And in our tissues, we build our tissues from stem cells that have that property of self-renewal.
"Along the way we discovered, after isolating stem cells from normal tissues, that cancer cells use the same process to expand, except it's not regulated. Knowing that, and knowing how the field was moving, Phil [Dean Pizzo] asked me to head up what was then called the Cancer Stem Cell Institute, to develop a comprehensive cancer center and also a stem cell institute. So…we began raising money.
"At the same time, I had been Chair of the National Academy of Science's (NAS) panel on embryonic stem cell research and creating cells that are like embryonic stem cells, that were very early and primitive in development from adult tissue—so that you could take a cell and its genetic information, reprogram it back to the beginning, and now have a cell line from a given person, say, with a given genetic disease that could regenerate all the tissues.
"It became clear that this would be important not only for fundamental discovery research, but also for applications to regenerative medicine, on the one hand, where you're trying to get stem cells to do what your body should be doing (regenerating the tissues), and, on the other hand, understanding cancer and cancer stem cells and trying to find new targets [for treatment].
"After that NAS panel came up with its judgment, the president immediately banned funding for most of the research that we thought would be essential moving forward. And that led to a group of mainly Hollywood people and parents of diabetic kids getting together with us and [asking]—is there some future [benefit] there we're going to miss for our kids? And we said—yes, not rapidly, but it's going to happen."
"Peter Van Etten, former President of Stanford Hospital, suggested to them and to us that Robert Klein would be a good person [to try to circumvent the banning of stem cell research]. In 2003 and 2004, Bob Klein led—and many of us helped—the [effort to put before the voters of California] Proposition 71, which was passed by the voters, 59% to 41%, to fund facilities and research of all aspects of stem cell research to the tune of about $3 billion over ten to twelve years. After two years of lawsuits [against the Proposition, all of which failed], that [funding began].
"Part of the goal structure for us [at Stanford] was to set up an entirely nondepartmental institute which now houses separately part of the Cancer Center, and [all of] the Stem Cell Institute. It is and will be managed by the Stem Cell Institute; it is nondepartmental. The Executive Committee of the Medical School devised a plan, called a White Paper, about how to organize [the Institute] in a formula school like the Medical School, [and distribute] overheads from grants and teaching credits, so that the Institute would not be beholden to departments and would be free to grow.
"We have eight slots [faculty positions] that we're filling in the cancer [field], eight slots purely in stem cell biology, and then more that will come in through the Dean's Reserve. Everybody who comes into that building will be governed by this group."
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Professor Weisman introduced the next speaker, with these remarks, "There are actually four kinds of stem cells: adult tissue stem cells (each of our organs has them); cancer stem cells (when they go crazy); embryonic stem cells (what were originally developed from preimplantation—I shouldn't even call it embryo, because even the embryologists didn't call it that, [because] it's a misnomer, but the conceptus); and reprogramming. When it looked like Reneé Reijo Pera was going to leave the University of California at San Francisco…we grabbed her. She's the head of our human embryonic stem cell facility and program."
With the aid of slides, Professor Reijo Pera began her presentation.
FIGURE TWO
"Shown on this slide [Figure two] are human embryonic stem cells that are derived from human embryos. In the upper left?hand corner [starting with d0—day zero] you see a human egg with the maternal pronucleus. That is an egg nucleus transcribing egg genes. On day 1 [d1], you can see that this egg has been fertilized. There's a paternal pronucleus [dark arrowhead] and a maternal pronucleus [white arrowhead]. The paternal pronucleus is obviously derived from a sperm and was previously transcribing sperm genes.
"As these two pronuclei migrate towards each other and fuse, there is transcriptional silence through the first three days. And in this transcriptional silence, when there is no RNA being made and the programs are being run off of maternal reserves (maternal materials inherited by the egg), there has to be a reprogramming of this egg and sperm nucleus into a nucleus of an embryo. That's the whole purpose of the first three days of our development (our origins), to go from a sperm nucleus and an egg nucleus to an embryonic cell nucleus.
"As these two pronuclei migrate towards each other, there is machinery that erases the methylation and epigenetic marks of the previous generation in transcriptional silence. On day 2 [d2], you see the first cleavage division. This human embryo cleaves into two cells. There's been no net growth in the embryo, just a cleavage. Early on day 3 [first d3], there is the second cleavage division leading to four cells and later on day 3 [second d3], there is the third cleavage division, and you get eight cells.
"Remarkably, approximately at this time, at the eight?cell stage, the embryonic genome is turned on, and the embryo begins to transcribe its own genes. Shortly after that are the next divisions, the fourth and the fifth divisions leading to 16 [d4] and 32 cells. As those 16 to 32 cells are formed, the embryo compacts, physically compacts to form a morula with no distinct cell border. This leads to there being two different cell populations [d5]—a cell population on the outside that is seeing different signals from the cells on the inside. Consequently, what happens on day 5 — and this embryo is smaller than the point of a pin—is you have the first clear differentiation of the human embryo [d5]. You see there are two different cell types formed—an outer layer [dark arrowhead], called the trophectoderm that will attach that embryo to the uterus, if it is transferred to a woman or formed in a woman. And there are about 25 cells [light arrowhead] that are called the inner cell mass cells. What's interesting to reflect upon is that all of the politics and discussion about these cells [are about] this inner cell mass. Why is it important? Because this inner cell mass—these 25 cells—will go on to form the embryo and the fetus, if it is transferred to a woman.
"On day 6 [d6], if this embryo is in vivo or on a plate, what happens is that the embryo hatches. There's a hard shell along the outside, and the embryo simply hatches out, and you can still see the trophectoderm, the outer layer in the inner cell mass.
"In deriving human embryonic stem cell lines, we take this embryo mass and put it on some feeder cells. [These] embryonic feeder cells provide nutrients [the nature of which] we don't really know exactly. After about two to three weeks you can see that a small colony forms [hESCs, human embryonic stem cells], and subsequently, those colonies can be passaged and passaged, and they last for years and years.
"It is interesting to consider a couple of points. Human embryonic stem cell lines are derived from embryos that are donated for research, usually for one of two reasons. Either the quality of the embryo was poor and you could not transfer it to a woman and expect it to result in a pregnancy, or the embryos are in excess of reproductive need, meaning that the couple has finished reproducing, and there are a lot of their embryos in the freezer. In the United States there are approximately 400,000 embryos that have been cryo-preserved and are in excess of need.
"The human embryonic stem cells, as far as we know, can make all of the 210?plus different cell types of the human body. That's really been our scientific fascination. We have never had a system before to look at how you make a human liver cell, representing the earliest stages of liver development, [or in the case of the nerve cell], the earliest stages of neural development.
"There are alternatives [to human embryonic stem cells]. The alternatives are generally arrived at through reprogramming somatic cells.
"Let me cover a couple of points. First I'd like to define programming. When my skin cell divides, it should form another skin cell, because it's programmed to form another skin cell. So programming is the setting of cell fate during development such that a skin cell forms a skin cell and a muscle cell forms a muscle cell.
"Reprogramming is basically what happens early in our development. We are going to erase the preset programs that are set, and we are going to reset the clock to an embryonic state. In most of the reprogramming strategies, how well we've set the clock is really the unknown factor. There have been a number of variations presented to reprogram or reset the clock. The most productive one so far in humans is the production of induced pluripotent stem cells by the introduction of four genetic factors into the somatic cells. We can take a skin biopsy, introduce the four factors into those skin cells, grow them in an incubator, and produce colonies that look like human embryonic stem cell colonies."
The next slide showed colored images of embroid bodies, and cells representing the endoderm, ectoderm, mesoderm and germ cells.
"This [strategy is based on research] by Shinya Yamanaka in Japan. [These are] embroid bodies. These are induced pluripotent stem cells that have been taken off of their feeders [and have begun] to differentiate randomly in many different directions. And what you see is that they can form cells into endodermal lineages, such as liver cells, ectodermal lineages such as neural cells, mesodermal lineages, such as smooth muscle, and they can even form germ cells. These are powerful cells and powerful tools for human?specific biology. And this is an unprecedented time for human biology.
"I wanted to just leave you with two slides of many words and I'm sorry about that. But I want to talk briefly about some of the central concepts that I think are important as a foundation for the human embryonic stem cell research in the institute."
Professor Pera showed a slide summarizing central concepts underlying future human embryonic stem cell and pluripotent stem cell exploration.
"First…human embryo development encompasses both reprogramming and programming. It sets the body plan in motion, and we really don't understand that.
"Second, human embryonic stem cells can differentiate to all cell types of the body. As they differentiate, you go from a cell that can form many different cell types to cells that have their fate committed. They lose potential.
"Third, reprogramming may recapitulate the earlier development in the embryo, or theoretically, there are many different paths to reprogram embryonic stem cells, and that is of great scientific interest to us.
"Fourth, in a more applied manner, there are novel and unprecedented applications in reproductive and fetal health and somatic differentiation. Imagination is a great thing, especially in an institution like Stanford.
"Fifth, there are fundamental questions that we can address, like what is the origin of a sporadic disease? If you take a somatic cell from a person carrying a sporadic disease and reprogram it, do you get the same sporadic disease, or is there an environmental influence?
"Finally, undoubtedly there's going to be translation to future treatments or drug screening protocols that use this technology.
"Now, I would just say I am talking about [four] major scientific challenges.
First, we are not great at directing cell decisions. Given a human embryonic stem cell in front of you, getting it to make a decision to go down a certain pathway is a very hard problem. We need to optimize the surfaces the cells grow on and optimize the molecular signals they receive for cell?to?cell interaction. We need to be able to analyze a very small number of cells. If you make a neuron, it would be nice to know what an individual neuron looks like rather than just a population of neurons.
"We need to be able to diagnose [correctly] the fate of a cell. Given a cell, especially one that is going into a transplant, you want to know the outcome prior [to the transplant]. What will it differentiate to, is it tumorigenic? And finally, a huge challenge is recapitulating genetic disease in vitro from cells we obtain from the human individuals.
"What's interesting about these four major scientific challenges…is that Stanford is unsurpassed in having the ability to address these challenges. With [schools] of engineering and medicine, departments of biology, and the [variety of] educational programs, these [challenges cam be met]. I think that Irv has done a great job in getting the right people into the Institute.
"Thank you."
[Applause]
Interactions among the Schools at Stanford University
Professor Weissman resumed, "For stem cell research to go forward at Stanford in all of the areas…you can't do this in the Medical School alone. We have heavy interactions with engineering…When biochemists want to do a study, they start off with 100 million cells. We tell somebody like [Professor] Steve Quake, co?head of Bioengineering, [that we] can get 300 or 500 cells, and we need to know everything about their biochemistry in order to understand what's happening…He just reduces the volumes of chemical reactions down to a nanoliter, and then those kinds of experiments can be done.
"We have many other interactions, especially with biology. I have had a lab for 30 years at the Hopkins Marine station…studying the evolution of stem cells...In the Institute [we do] mainly basic science. We draw on the kinds of issues that come up—like [Professor] Andy Fire's small RNA species that regulate things when a cell tries to make a message or make a protein… Because the cells that we're getting out are the cells that regenerate our body (and we can do it in humans or in mice) we can get an immediate chance…to use them for regeneration. In the 1980s we developed the general technique at Stanford of how to identify and isolate adult tissue stem cells starting with the blood?forming stem cell. We've [isolated] blood?forming stem cells in mice and humans, brain?forming cells in humans, muscle?forming stem cells in mice, blood? and cartilage?forming stem cells, and in the blood system, every cell between the stem cell and the actual blood cell.
"When you can purify those different cells, you can do biochemistry. You can [determine] what genes are on, what genes are off, to make them programmed to be that cell. Between those embryonic or pluripotent stem cells and the tissues that you make are these adult stem cells. [They] are the only cells that regenerate tissue. If I ever wanted hair again, [I would start with] the hair stem cell, because the cell right below it doesn't know how to self?renew.
"The idea, then, is that you can get the stem cell out and test whether…it will regenerate. The fantastic fact is that it does, and in a predictable fashion. Bone marrow blood?forming stem cell transplantation is the basis of all bone marrow transplants. There are two reasons [for bone marrow transplants] and it's important to know that we are the leaders in both of these fields.
"If you have a cancer, and you need to have a very high dose of combination chemotherapy and radiotherapy…you usually wipe out the blood?forming system, the system most sensitive to radiation and chemotherapy. It's been a practice for a long time either to get [an aliquot] of a donor's blood?forming system or of your own blood?forming system, freeze it, treat it and [use it to regenerate the blood forming system].
"In a study of stage 4 breast cancer patients led by [Professor] Rob Negrin, head of [Stanford's] bone marrow transplant unit, we were able for the first time to isolate human blood?forming stem cells free of the cancer cells that contaminate the bone marrow when the breast cancer is spread. And the phase I and II trials [to test the safety and efficacy of this treatment in patients] were done here.
"In order to [accomplish this] we had to form a company…If you want to know about the university side of forming company and dealing with issues like conflict of interest, Don Kennedy's book, Academic Duty, has a whole chapter on it.
"So, at Stanford, we have developed techniques such that…say, if you were to irradiate Phil [Dean Pizzo] and put my stem cells in him—
Dean Pizzo interjected, "God forbid!'
[Laughter]
Dr. Weissman continued, "…[to form] any organ or tissue from my body. And if he had Type 1 diabetes, and I don't, I could replace his cells with ones that cannot have diabetes…[Professor Weisman listed other diseases such as] lupus, or rheumatoid arthritis, or [other] autoimmune diseases. …From those pluripotent stem cells, you have one genetic origin for all of those cells that can make all of the tissues. If we can isolate blood?forming stem cells from that donor, that pluripotent stem cell, and brain?forming stem cells or muscle or hair?forming, we can do code transplants. That is the basis of regenerative medicine.
"For cancer stem cells, in a word, cancers don't come from Mars, they come our own bodies. And therefore, they have the same differentiation scheme, except they're aberrant and they self?renew without regulation.
"[Professor] Mike Clarke was the first to isolate a solid cancer stem cell…We were the first to absolutely purify human acute myelogenous leukemia stem cells. When we isolate those cells pure, of which there may be 5 to 10% of all the cells in the cancer, we now [potentially] know for the first time what went wrong. And [that can] can lead to therapies.
"The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, in its wisdom, put out a request for applications, saying, 'You academic universities should do what companies start to do. You should take your discoveries through what's called preclinical testing to an FDA Phase 1 trial.' So you have to do an awful lot that you don't usually do. [Professor] Judy Shizuru from the Bone Marrow Transplant Group is isolating human blood forming stem cells for the treatment of severe combined immunodeficiency, the "Bubble Boy" disease; she is also planning to treat scleroderma, an autoimmune disease. Dr. Ravi Majeti, Bev Mitchell and I are taking the antibodies that selectively bind leukemia stem cells, including an amazing antibody. It blocks a signal that [if not blocked, prevents] leukemia cells from being eaten. [In an immunodeficient mouse with a primary human leukemia given this antibody] we can clear most, if not all, of the leukemia. So we are going to take that to the trial.
"[Professor] Bobby Robbins and Deepak Srivastava at the Gladstone Institute at UCSF are trying to apply embryonic stem cell derived heart stem cells, when they are discovered, to treat degenerative heart disease or after a myocardial infarction. [Professor] Gary Steinberg is attempting to differentiate embryonic stem cells to brain cells to see if they will work in stroke. The company I started has already tested human brain stem cells in a child with neurodegenerative disease and is about to try a spinal cord trial.
"… I think you get the idea that [applying] stem cell thinking to biological and medical problems opens up a whole new field. And, in my last word, that's why we have to have an interdepartmental institute."
[Applause]
Professor Cohen thanked Professors Weisman and Pera and opened the floor for questions.
Professor Andrew Fire commented, "It's clear this was a remarkable success for raising resources for the medical school, and the university, and it's [led] to this Institute. Presumably it starts with somebody coming to Phil [Dean Pizzo] and saying, what are the things that I can do that are going to make the biggest impact over the next ten or twenty years?" Professor Fire asked Dean Pizzo, "[What do you think [will be the] answer to the [same] question with ten years from now?"
Dean Pizzo clarified what Professor Fire meant and then responded, "[The effort that led to the Stem Cell Institute] was part of a set of efforts…that we've outlined in key areas that we think we could make a difference in—interdisciplinary [and] interdepartmental connections between basic and clinical science. [Beside the accomplishments…in terms of stem cells] we've done the same or are doing the same thing in other key areas—in cancer, neurosciences, cardiovascular disease and in the interplay between transplantation and infection. We want to suffuse into [those areas] the connecting points—in genomics and human genetics and in imaging and informatics— that helps move those things forward or holds them together.
"Because these are all connected to programs and ultimately to facilities, we're redoubling our efforts at investment in human capital. We're looking to tell donors who might come along that we're hoping they'll invest in the future pipeline—our graduate students, postdocs and faculty, particularly today, who need that foundation of support during this tremendous economic downturn. That's where I would direct people at this point. I think we've made the right start in terms of our big, sweeping programs and facilities, but we need to shore up that investment in terms of the people part of the equation."
Dr. Weissman asked if he could respond briefly. Given Chair Cohen's nod, he said, "Donors meet a lot of people. They go to a lot of conferences here. I think mainly we sell ourselves. The [donors] are smart enough and usually have enough advice to see if we're real or not…For anybody in any area, for example, in the basic sciences, it takes a lot of time and talking and going to a lot of public events in to sell your subject."
B. Committee on Graduate Studies and Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy: Revision of the Academic Calendar and Enrollment Deadlines (SenD#6168)
Next, Chair Cohen welcomed Professor Philippe Buc, Chair of the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy [C-USP], Professor Phil Lavori, Chair of the Committee on Graduate Studies [C-GS], and Tom Black, University Registrar and Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs, who presented a collaborative report describing the proposed changes to the Academic Calendar and Enrollment Deadlines.
Members of both committees were invited to hear this report.
Registrar Black began his presentation by thanking Chair Cohen, "We have been working on this calendar for about a year. It reflects the collective wisdom of a variety of people and groups including students, staff in departments and in the schools, professional staff in the libraries, central offices, housing, and in undergraduate advising and new student orientation. It was reviewed by…the Committee for Graduate Studies chaired by Professor Lavori, and the Committee for Undergraduate Standards and Policies, chaired by Professor Buc.
He showed a slide of the proposed Academic Calendar Deadlines for 2009-2010 extending from August 2009 through August 2010, which included the date enrollment opens, the first day of classes and preliminary study list deadlines, the final study list deadlines, the course withdrawal and grading basis deadlines, the last day of exams and last day of quarter.
"There are a couple of observations I'd like to make about this calendar. First, we will be adding instructional days to three of the quarters. We already have a quarter in autumn that starts on Monday, with instruction that starts on Monday. We will do the same in the winter, spring and summer quarters. We think that it's time to regulate our meeting patterns so that there aren't losses of instructional days…We believe this calendar will promote and encourage advising, and will open enrollment during the sixth week of the current quarter for the upcoming quarter. This should give faculty and students ample time to schedule sessions for advising. We think that's a good thing.
"In July 2010 we will be required by the federal government to publish our textbook information when enrollment opens…We also encourage faculty to help us get additional information to the students at that time by publishing their expanded course descriptions [with] additional information about the course, including their reading list, course objectives and how they will evaluate students.
"Finally, this calendar simplifies life at Stanford in that it reduces the number of deadlines from five to three. First, we will have the preliminary study list deadline on the first day of the quarter. [Second] we will have a collapsed add and drop back deadline at the end of the third week and [third] a collapsed grading option and withdrawal deadline at the end of the eighth week.
"I think [most students] would be concerned with just the two deadlines, the preliminary study list deadline, and the drop back deadline. We think…will be an improvement in the lives of students, [with] less stress, and we certainly hope that you will help us with this calendar, especially by delivering more information to the students when enrollment opens during the sixth week."
Chair Cohen invited Professors Lavori and Professor Buc, Chairs of C-GS and C-USP, respectively to make any comments.
Professor Lavori, referring to Professor Pera's earlier presentation, "I think I'll just sit here in transcriptional silence and await a cellular signal in the form of a question about the deliberations of my committee."
Professor Buc had some comments: "… Some of us do not teach Mondays and do not [schedule] our teaching on a Monday?Wednesday pattern because we don't [like] Mondays, especially in the winter quarters. So then…it becomes an issue for classrooms and we know that space is scarce at Stanford.
"Having been an advisor, I know how confusing the multiple deadlines…are, and how often the students trip. And I would get tripped, in fact, by some of these [five] deadlines, [too] quite frankly, in a ten?week quarter. I think [the new schedule of deadlines] is also going to encourage students to consult their advisors more [closely]. We all know that the advising situation at Stanford is not what it hopes to be, as a permanent type thing. [So I think the changes] are a good measure. And that was the consensus of my committee, and…most of the Steering Committee."
Professor Cohen then turned to Jonny Dorsey, Chair of the ASSU who wished to comment on the changes.
Mr. Dorsey stood up in the back row and said, "I just told Tom [Black] I wanted to speak up when he came to present this, because I think it's great…There are two things in particular that I thought were very important that Tom learned through his conversations about this transition. One is that you might think students would be frustrated when you pulled the drop deadline back into week 3 [and combine it] with the add deadline. One of the arguments frequently used for keeping [these different deadlines] relate to student stress. But what Tom explained to me is that really what causes the biggest stress for students is when they mess up one or the other deadlines. [They find] they need to drop a class…they've got an awful mid term grade, but it's too late now to drop and it causes more frustration, more stress to have those [deadlines] separated. By combining [the add and drop deadlines], it might mean that students have to be more involved earlier, and it will lead to less major stressful cases.
"Secondly, I think having week 6 as the deadline for registration will be helpful [is a good thing]. Because of Senator Grassley's [Republican Senator from Iowa] legislation, you have to post your textbooks when registration opens, [and this] has the potential to save students a lot of money. I hope that when you as faculty are posting your textbooks, you can [include] all of your [required] readings, and make decisions early, because for your course readers, if you have those decided in advance, you can really save students quite a bit by potentially even when using an outside course reader [publishing] companies."
Professor Patricia Burchat asked which deadlines have been merged.
Registrar Black replied that the add and drop deadlines have been merged to week 3 and the grade change and withdrawal deadlines to week 8.
Professor John Bravman, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education commented, "I just want to speak very strongly in favor of this. Tom has worked long on this and so have a lot of other people…Many of these things seem fairly trivial but in fact lead to a lot of student stress [and] hundreds of petitions a year about missed deadlines. Having five deadlines in a ten?week quarter just doesn't make sense. I think we're also going to move the [time of the deadline in the] third week of the quarter, say a midnight deadline…to a Friday night, rather than a Sunday night [because] as it is now, students kind of get to this kind of late. Unfortunately there's a game played in many dorms [about] who's going to be the last one to register. Of course, Axess [the online web site] crashes when everyone tries to log on 11:49:52. [By moving] it to Friday, there's a better chance of getting advising. These deadlines are an important component of effective advising. And [for] better planning and more intentionality, it's very important in my opinion that we make these changes."
Professor Gordon Chang asked, "Can you explain what the shaded areas are? It says the shaded areas are advising days available before teaching begins."
Registrar Black replied, "It's the idea of enrollment opening and that incentivizes students to seek out their advisors. Enrollment opens at the sixth week of the current quarter for the upcoming quarter."
Professor Chang observed, "I'm looking at the fall quarter. For example, when do dorms open? When can students start to come, the average student?"
Registrar Black was not certain.
Professor Chang thought it was August 17th, "So the day before the 17th doesn't mean anything in terms of trying to find advisors?"
Professor Bravman responded, "For freshman advising, which is a separate subset… we're going to be making for the very first time a specific effort to contact every freshman in advance of their arrival at school with professional advising from academic directors."
Registrar Black added, "We also have athletes arriving on campus in August. We hope that they could reach their advisors and prepare for their enrollment, because many of them have to be enrolled in order to compete."
Professor Chang noted, "It's my experience that students try to get to campuses as close to the beginning day as possible, which makes it very difficult for them to get any advising or talking to anybody, even get much information about courses other than what's available online, wherever they may be around the world."
Professor Buc commented, "Well, due to the fact that students will use e?mail to contact us…if we [provide] easy access to the syllabi, we can actually in some cases be confident to [know] whether they are nearby or not--that's also one of the advantages of [publishing the] syllabus [online]. But the extent of course description…and the kind of exams or papers [that] will be asked [will make it] so much better than what you have now."
Professor Chang replied, "I'm not questioning the wisdom, I'm just trying to think it through a bit. We've also talked about improved advising, having one-to-one contact with student advisors. I'm just wondering if this calendar and these shaded [areas indicating availability of advising] actually reflect that [intention]. Will the [students] be coming back to campus in time to have that one-on-one with [his or her] advisor, particularly in the fall?"
Professor Bravman replied, "A lot of these students return early. Actually…a lot of students come back too early, and so there are plenty of populations on both ends of that curve. For students who choose to come back the morning that classes start, it's going to be potentially a problem, that's right. Now we want students to be registered in something the first day of classes which is completely counter?procedure…[This new schedule] is better."
Registrar Black agreed, "It really represents an opportunity where advising could take place. I think you could perhaps assist in this, and that [was] Jonny's [Dorsey] point. The more material you can get out there virtually, [the more] helpful [it will be] to students as they're making their selections."
Professor Burchat had another question: "On the first day of classes…I think you mentioned that the [students] need to be planning for 12 units--was that a change, or is that the same?"
Registrar Black explained that it was not a change and that it represented the requirement for each quarter if the student has full-time status. If the student hasn't registered by the deadline, there will be some sort of penalty, probably financial, but the details remain to be worked out. The purpose of the penalty is to encourage students to register on time."
Chair Cohen commented, "I think another advantage of this is--you're starting on Monday, which gives another day to teach. I think that's a message in and of itself--that you're increasing the amount of teaching."
Professor Bravman added, "Especially winter quarter, when we lose two Mondays. That compensates for half of that."
Professor Harry Elam commented, "The time students have to choose in the fall can be longer because we're opening [advising], August 1st. So they have that time to really think about what they want and hopefully do consulting. And John [Bravman] mentioned the academic directors, which is a new advising system that is residentially based that students are taking more advantage of."
Professor Buc asked where the syllabi will be posted.
Registrar Black answered, "There are two sites, those are CourseWork and syllabus.stanford.edu. One is the University's learning management system, a very elaborate software, and the other is just a web page, a website, for the posting of PDFs and information related to the course."
Professor Burchat observed, "When you go into Course Work, automatically they post a syllabus."
Professor Bravman asked, "Is the physical printing of the course Bulletin actually going to stop completely?"
Professor Burchat interjected, "Starting when?"
Registrar Black: "At this time. We have had an online version of the document…all this year to improve its searchability. We're working with several departmental administrators to improve it, so that will be our effort this summer, to make sure that it can be as best as it can be."
Professor Burchat asked, "Is the decision [to stop printing the bulletin] completely financial, or is it a perceived lack of use? I think the paper course bulletin is incredibly useful. Partly for students stumbling across courses, they browse through the paper copy in a very different way than they can browse through online."
Professor Bravman commented, "Some students would flip through like I did. But I asked them about this and they don't look at the book at all. They are searching online. They have a different paradigm."
Professor Burchat demurred, "I know of examples where they are looking through the book."
Registrar Black relented: "We will work with the bookstore to make sure we can come up with a print?on?demand capability. So if somebody would want the Bulletin they could get it."
In answer to another question Registrar Black said that the plan was to have the Bulletin online, but downloadable as PDF.
Chair Cohen concluded the discussion by commenting: "I get the sense that we are applauding what you're doing. [It's] better for the students, better for education, and I think pretty good for the faculty too. I thank you, and Philippe, and Phil, for doing such a great job, doing what we want to do for education for students."
[applause]
VI. Unfinished BusinessThere was no unfinished business.
VII. New BusinessThere was no new business.
VIII. AdjournmentThe motion to adjourn was moved, seconded and approved by voice vote.
Chair Cohen concluded his masterful debut as Senate Chair by saying to the Senate, "I want you all to let Karen know that we ended at 4:37 PM."
Respectfully submitted, Rex L. Jamison, MD Academic Secretary to the University
"Shown on this slide [Figure two] are human embryonic stem cells that are derived from human embryos. In the upper left?hand corner [starting with d0—day zero] you see a human egg with the maternal pronucleus. That is an egg nucleus transcribing egg genes. On day 1 [d1], you can see that this egg has been fertilized. There's a paternal pronucleus [dark arrowhead] and a maternal pronucleus [white arrowhead]. The paternal pronucleus is obviously derived from a sperm and was previously transcribing sperm genes.
"As these two pronuclei migrate towards each other and fuse, there is transcriptional silence through the first three days. And in this transcriptional silence, when there is no RNA being made and the programs are being run off of maternal reserves (maternal materials inherited by the egg), there has to be a reprogramming of this egg and sperm nucleus into a nucleus of an embryo. That's the whole purpose of the first three days of our development (our origins), to go from a sperm nucleus and an egg nucleus to an embryonic cell nucleus.
"As these two pronuclei migrate towards each other, there is machinery that erases the methylation and epigenetic marks of the previous generation in transcriptional silence. On day 2 [d2], you see the first cleavage division. This human embryo cleaves into two cells. There's been no net growth in the embryo, just a cleavage. Early on day 3 [first d3], there is the second cleavage division leading to four cells and later on day 3 [second d3], there is the third cleavage division, and you get eight cells.
"Remarkably, approximately at this time, at the eight?cell stage, the embryonic genome is turned on, and the embryo begins to transcribe its own genes. Shortly after that are the next divisions, the fourth and the fifth divisions leading to 16 [d4] and 32 cells. As those 16 to 32 cells are formed, the embryo compacts, physically compacts to form a morula with no distinct cell border. This leads to there being two different cell populations [d5]—a cell population on the outside that is seeing different signals from the cells on the inside. Consequently, what happens on day 5 — and this embryo is smaller than the point of a pin—is you have the first clear differentiation of the human embryo [d5]. You see there are two different cell types formed—an outer layer [dark arrowhead], called the trophectoderm that will attach that embryo to the uterus, if it is transferred to a woman or formed in a woman. And there are about 25 cells [light arrowhead] that are called the inner cell mass cells. What's interesting to reflect upon is that all of the politics and discussion about these cells [are about] this inner cell mass. Why is it important? Because this inner cell mass—these 25 cells—will go on to form the embryo and the fetus, if it is transferred to a woman.
"On day 6 [d6], if this embryo is in vivo or on a plate, what happens is that the embryo hatches. There's a hard shell along the outside, and the embryo simply hatches out, and you can still see the trophectoderm, the outer layer in the inner cell mass.
"In deriving human embryonic stem cell lines, we take this embryo mass and put it on some feeder cells. [These] embryonic feeder cells provide nutrients [the nature of which] we don't really know exactly. After about two to three weeks you can see that a small colony forms [hESCs, human embryonic stem cells], and subsequently, those colonies can be passaged and passaged, and they last for years and years.
"It is interesting to consider a couple of points. Human embryonic stem cell lines are derived from embryos that are donated for research, usually for one of two reasons. Either the quality of the embryo was poor and you could not transfer it to a woman and expect it to result in a pregnancy, or the embryos are in excess of reproductive need, meaning that the couple has finished reproducing, and there are a lot of their embryos in the freezer. In the United States there are approximately 400,000 embryos that have been cryo-preserved and are in excess of need.
"The human embryonic stem cells, as far as we know, can make all of the 210?plus different cell types of the human body. That's really been our scientific fascination. We have never had a system before to look at how you make a human liver cell, representing the earliest stages of liver development, [or in the case of the nerve cell], the earliest stages of neural development.
"There are alternatives [to human embryonic stem cells]. The alternatives are generally arrived at through reprogramming somatic cells.
"Let me cover a couple of points. First I'd like to define programming. When my skin cell divides, it should form another skin cell, because it's programmed to form another skin cell. So programming is the setting of cell fate during development such that a skin cell forms a skin cell and a muscle cell forms a muscle cell.
"Reprogramming is basically what happens early in our development. We are going to erase the preset programs that are set, and we are going to reset the clock to an embryonic state. In most of the reprogramming strategies, how well we've set the clock is really the unknown factor. There have been a number of variations presented to reprogram or reset the clock. The most productive one so far in humans is the production of induced pluripotent stem cells by the introduction of four genetic factors into the somatic cells. We can take a skin biopsy, introduce the four factors into those skin cells, grow them in an incubator, and produce colonies that look like human embryonic stem cell colonies."
The next slide showed colored images of embroid bodies, and cells representing the endoderm, ectoderm, mesoderm and germ cells.
"This [strategy is based on research] by Shinya Yamanaka in Japan. [These are] embroid bodies. These are induced pluripotent stem cells that have been taken off of their feeders [and have begun] to differentiate randomly in many different directions. And what you see is that they can form cells into endodermal lineages, such as liver cells, ectodermal lineages such as neural cells, mesodermal lineages, such as smooth muscle, and they can even form germ cells. These are powerful cells and powerful tools for human?specific biology. And this is an unprecedented time for human biology.
"I wanted to just leave you with two slides of many words and I'm sorry about that. But I want to talk briefly about some of the central concepts that I think are important as a foundation for the human embryonic stem cell research in the institute."
Professor Pera showed a slide summarizing central concepts underlying future human embryonic stem cell and pluripotent stem cell exploration.
"First…human embryo development encompasses both reprogramming and programming. It sets the body plan in motion, and we really don't understand that.
"Second, human embryonic stem cells can differentiate to all cell types of the body. As they differentiate, you go from a cell that can form many different cell types to cells that have their fate committed. They lose potential.
"Third, reprogramming may recapitulate the earlier development in the embryo, or theoretically, there are many different paths to reprogram embryonic stem cells, and that is of great scientific interest to us.
"Fourth, in a more applied manner, there are novel and unprecedented applications in reproductive and fetal health and somatic differentiation. Imagination is a great thing, especially in an institution like Stanford.
"Fifth, there are fundamental questions that we can address, like what is the origin of a sporadic disease? If you take a somatic cell from a person carrying a sporadic disease and reprogram it, do you get the same sporadic disease, or is there an environmental influence?
"Finally, undoubtedly there's going to be translation to future treatments or drug screening protocols that use this technology.
"Now, I would just say I am talking about [four] major scientific challenges.
First, we are not great at directing cell decisions. Given a human embryonic stem cell in front of you, getting it to make a decision to go down a certain pathway is a very hard problem. We need to optimize the surfaces the cells grow on and optimize the molecular signals they receive for cell?to?cell interaction. We need to be able to analyze a very small number of cells. If you make a neuron, it would be nice to know what an individual neuron looks like rather than just a population of neurons.
"We need to be able to diagnose [correctly] the fate of a cell. Given a cell, especially one that is going into a transplant, you want to know the outcome prior [to the transplant]. What will it differentiate to, is it tumorigenic? And finally, a huge challenge is recapitulating genetic disease in vitro from cells we obtain from the human individuals.
"What's interesting about these four major scientific challenges…is that Stanford is unsurpassed in having the ability to address these challenges. With [schools] of engineering and medicine, departments of biology, and the [variety of] educational programs, these [challenges cam be met]. I think that Irv has done a great job in getting the right people into the Institute.
"Thank you."
[Applause]
Interactions among the Schools at Stanford University
Professor Weissman resumed, "For stem cell research to go forward at Stanford in all of the areas…you can't do this in the Medical School alone. We have heavy interactions with engineering…When biochemists want to do a study, they start off with 100 million cells. We tell somebody like [Professor] Steve Quake, co?head of Bioengineering, [that we] can get 300 or 500 cells, and we need to know everything about their biochemistry in order to understand what's happening…He just reduces the volumes of chemical reactions down to a nanoliter, and then those kinds of experiments can be done.
"We have many other interactions, especially with biology. I have had a lab for 30 years at the Hopkins Marine station…studying the evolution of stem cells...In the Institute [we do] mainly basic science. We draw on the kinds of issues that come up—like [Professor] Andy Fire's small RNA species that regulate things when a cell tries to make a message or make a protein… Because the cells that we're getting out are the cells that regenerate our body (and we can do it in humans or in mice) we can get an immediate chance…to use them for regeneration. In the 1980s we developed the general technique at Stanford of how to identify and isolate adult tissue stem cells starting with the blood?forming stem cell. We've [isolated] blood?forming stem cells in mice and humans, brain?forming cells in humans, muscle?forming stem cells in mice, blood? and cartilage?forming stem cells, and in the blood system, every cell between the stem cell and the actual blood cell.
"When you can purify those different cells, you can do biochemistry. You can [determine] what genes are on, what genes are off, to make them programmed to be that cell. Between those embryonic or pluripotent stem cells and the tissues that you make are these adult stem cells. [They] are the only cells that regenerate tissue. If I ever wanted hair again, [I would start with] the hair stem cell, because the cell right below it doesn't know how to self?renew.
"The idea, then, is that you can get the stem cell out and test whether…it will regenerate. The fantastic fact is that it does, and in a predictable fashion. Bone marrow blood?forming stem cell transplantation is the basis of all bone marrow transplants. There are two reasons [for bone marrow transplants] and it's important to know that we are the leaders in both of these fields.
"If you have a cancer, and you need to have a very high dose of combination chemotherapy and radiotherapy…you usually wipe out the blood?forming system, the system most sensitive to radiation and chemotherapy. It's been a practice for a long time either to get [an aliquot] of a donor's blood?forming system or of your own blood?forming system, freeze it, treat it and [use it to regenerate the blood forming system].
"In a study of stage 4 breast cancer patients led by [Professor] Rob Negrin, head of [Stanford's] bone marrow transplant unit, we were able for the first time to isolate human blood?forming stem cells free of the cancer cells that contaminate the bone marrow when the breast cancer is spread. And the phase I and II trials [to test the safety and efficacy of this treatment in patients] were done here.
"In order to [accomplish this] we had to form a company…If you want to know about the university side of forming company and dealing with issues like conflict of interest, Don Kennedy's book, Academic Duty, has a whole chapter on it.
"So, at Stanford, we have developed techniques such that…say, if you were to irradiate Phil [Dean Pizzo] and put my stem cells in him—
Dean Pizzo interjected, "God forbid!'
[Laughter]
Dr. Weissman continued, "…[to form] any organ or tissue from my body. And if he had Type 1 diabetes, and I don't, I could replace his cells with ones that cannot have diabetes…[Professor Weisman listed other diseases such as] lupus, or rheumatoid arthritis, or [other] autoimmune diseases. …From those pluripotent stem cells, you have one genetic origin for all of those cells that can make all of the tissues. If we can isolate blood?forming stem cells from that donor, that pluripotent stem cell, and brain?forming stem cells or muscle or hair?forming, we can do code transplants. That is the basis of regenerative medicine.
"For cancer stem cells, in a word, cancers don't come from Mars, they come our own bodies. And therefore, they have the same differentiation scheme, except they're aberrant and they self?renew without regulation.
"[Professor] Mike Clarke was the first to isolate a solid cancer stem cell…We were the first to absolutely purify human acute myelogenous leukemia stem cells. When we isolate those cells pure, of which there may be 5 to 10% of all the cells in the cancer, we now [potentially] know for the first time what went wrong. And [that can] can lead to therapies.
"The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, in its wisdom, put out a request for applications, saying, 'You academic universities should do what companies start to do. You should take your discoveries through what's called preclinical testing to an FDA Phase 1 trial.' So you have to do an awful lot that you don't usually do. [Professor] Judy Shizuru from the Bone Marrow Transplant Group is isolating human blood forming stem cells for the treatment of severe combined immunodeficiency, the "Bubble Boy" disease; she is also planning to treat scleroderma, an autoimmune disease. Dr. Ravi Majeti, Bev Mitchell and I are taking the antibodies that selectively bind leukemia stem cells, including an amazing antibody. It blocks a signal that [if not blocked, prevents] leukemia cells from being eaten. [In an immunodeficient mouse with a primary human leukemia given this antibody] we can clear most, if not all, of the leukemia. So we are going to take that to the trial.
"[Professor] Bobby Robbins and Deepak Srivastava at the Gladstone Institute at UCSF are trying to apply embryonic stem cell derived heart stem cells, when they are discovered, to treat degenerative heart disease or after a myocardial infarction. [Professor] Gary Steinberg is attempting to differentiate embryonic stem cells to brain cells to see if they will work in stroke. The company I started has already tested human brain stem cells in a child with neurodegenerative disease and is about to try a spinal cord trial.
"… I think you get the idea that [applying] stem cell thinking to biological and medical problems opens up a whole new field. And, in my last word, that's why we have to have an interdepartmental institute."
[Applause]
Professor Cohen thanked Professors Weisman and Pera and opened the floor for questions.
Professor Andrew Fire commented, "It's clear this was a remarkable success for raising resources for the medical school, and the university, and it's [led] to this Institute. Presumably it starts with somebody coming to Phil [Dean Pizzo] and saying, what are the things that I can do that are going to make the biggest impact over the next ten or twenty years?" Professor Fire asked Dean Pizzo, "[What do you think [will be the] answer to the [same] question with ten years from now?"
Dean Pizzo clarified what Professor Fire meant and then responded, "[The effort that led to the Stem Cell Institute] was part of a set of efforts…that we've outlined in key areas that we think we could make a difference in—interdisciplinary [and] interdepartmental connections between basic and clinical science. [Beside the accomplishments…in terms of stem cells] we've done the same or are doing the same thing in other key areas—in cancer, neurosciences, cardiovascular disease and in the interplay between transplantation and infection. We want to suffuse into [those areas] the connecting points—in genomics and human genetics and in imaging and informatics— that helps move those things forward or holds them together.
"Because these are all connected to programs and ultimately to facilities, we're redoubling our efforts at investment in human capital. We're looking to tell donors who might come along that we're hoping they'll invest in the future pipeline—our graduate students, postdocs and faculty, particularly today, who need that foundation of support during this tremendous economic downturn. That's where I would direct people at this point. I think we've made the right start in terms of our big, sweeping programs and facilities, but we need to shore up that investment in terms of the people part of the equation."
Dr. Weissman asked if he could respond briefly. Given Chair Cohen's nod, he said, "Donors meet a lot of people. They go to a lot of conferences here. I think mainly we sell ourselves. The [donors] are smart enough and usually have enough advice to see if we're real or not…For anybody in any area, for example, in the basic sciences, it takes a lot of time and talking and going to a lot of public events in to sell your subject."
Committee on Graduate Studies and Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy: Revision of the Academic Calendar and Enrollment Deadlines (SenD#6168)
Next, Chair Cohen welcomed Professor Philippe Buc, Chair of the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policy [C-USP], Professor Phil Lavori, Chair of the Committee on Graduate Studies [C-GS], and Tom Black, University Registrar and Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs, who presented a collaborative report describing the proposed changes to the Academic Calendar and Enrollment Deadlines.
Members of both committees were invited to hear this report.
Registrar Black began his presentation by thanking Chair Cohen, "We have been working on this calendar for about a year. It reflects the collective wisdom of a variety of people and groups including students, staff in departments and in the schools, professional staff in the libraries, central offices, housing, and in undergraduate advising and new student orientation. It was reviewed by…the Committee for Graduate Studies chaired by Professor Lavori, and the Committee for Undergraduate Standards and Policies, chaired by Professor Buc.
He showed a slide of the proposed Academic Calendar Deadlines for 2009-2010 extending from August 2009 through August 2010, which included the date enrollment opens, the first day of classes and preliminary study list deadlines, the final study list deadlines, the course withdrawal and grading basis deadlines, the last day of exams and last day of quarter.
"There are a couple of observations I'd like to make about this calendar. First, we will be adding instructional days to three of the quarters. We already have a quarter in autumn that starts on Monday, with instruction that starts on Monday. We will do the same in the winter, spring and summer quarters. We think that it's time to regulate our meeting patterns so that there aren't losses of instructional days…We believe this calendar will promote and encourage advising, and will open enrollment during the sixth week of the current quarter for the upcoming quarter. This should give faculty and students ample time to schedule sessions for advising. We think that's a good thing.
"In July 2010 we will be required by the federal government to publish our textbook information when enrollment opens…We also encourage faculty to help us get additional information to the students at that time by publishing their expanded course descriptions [with] additional information about the course, including their reading list, course objectives and how they will evaluate students.
"Finally, this calendar simplifies life at Stanford in that it reduces the number of deadlines from five to three. First, we will have the preliminary study list deadline on the first day of the quarter. [Second] we will have a collapsed add and drop back deadline at the end of the third week and [third] a collapsed grading option and withdrawal deadline at the end of the eighth week.
"I think [most students] would be concerned with just the two deadlines, the preliminary study list deadline, and the drop back deadline. We think…will be an improvement in the lives of students, [with] less stress, and we certainly hope that you will help us with this calendar, especially by delivering more information to the students when enrollment opens during the sixth week."
Chair Cohen invited Professors Lavori and Professor Buc, Chairs of C-GS and C-USP, respectively to make any comments.
Professor Lavori, referring to Professor Pera's earlier presentation, "I think I'll just sit here in transcriptional silence and await a cellular signal in the form of a question about the deliberations of my committee."
Professor Buc had some comments: "… Some of us do not teach Mondays and do not [schedule] our teaching on a Monday?Wednesday pattern because we don't [like] Mondays, especially in the winter quarters. So then…it becomes an issue for classrooms and we know that space is scarce at Stanford.
"Having been an advisor, I know how confusing the multiple deadlines…are, and how often the students trip. And I would get tripped, in fact, by some of these [five] deadlines, [too] quite frankly, in a ten?week quarter. I think [the new schedule of deadlines] is also going to encourage students to consult their advisors more [closely]. We all know that the advising situation at Stanford is not what it hopes to be, as a permanent type thing. [So I think the changes] are a good measure. And that was the consensus of my committee, and…most of the Steering Committee."
Professor Cohen then turned to Jonny Dorsey, Chair of the ASSU who wished to comment on the changes.
Mr. Dorsey stood up in the back row and said, "I just told Tom [Black] I wanted to speak up when he came to present this, because I think it's great…There are two things in particular that I thought were very important that Tom learned through his conversations about this transition. One is that you might think students would be frustrated when you pulled the drop deadline back into week 3 [and combine it] with the add deadline. One of the arguments frequently used for keeping [these different deadlines] relate to student stress. But what Tom explained to me is that really what causes the biggest stress for students is when they mess up one or the other deadlines. [They find] they need to drop a class…they've got an awful mid term grade, but it's too late now to drop and it causes more frustration, more stress to have those [deadlines] separated. By combining [the add and drop deadlines], it might mean that students have to be more involved earlier, and it will lead to less major stressful cases.
"Secondly, I think having week 6 as the deadline for registration will be helpful [is a good thing]. Because of Senator Grassley's [Republican Senator from Iowa] legislation, you have to post your textbooks when registration opens, [and this] has the potential to save students a lot of money. I hope that when you as faculty are posting your textbooks, you can [include] all of your [required] readings, and make decisions early, because for your course readers, if you have those decided in advance, you can really save students quite a bit by potentially even when using an outside course reader [publishing] companies."
Professor Patricia Burchat asked which deadlines have been merged.
Registrar Black replied that the add and drop deadlines have been merged to week 3 and the grade change and withdrawal deadlines to week 8.
Professor John Bravman, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education commented, "I just want to speak very strongly in favor of this. Tom has worked long on this and so have a lot of other people…Many of these things seem fairly trivial but in fact lead to a lot of student stress [and] hundreds of petitions a year about missed deadlines. Having five deadlines in a ten?week quarter just doesn't make sense. I think we're also going to move the [time of the deadline in the] third week of the quarter, say a midnight deadline…to a Friday night, rather than a Sunday night [because] as it is now, students kind of get to this kind of late. Unfortunately there's a game played in many dorms [about] who's going to be the last one to register. Of course, Axess [the online web site] crashes when everyone tries to log on 11:49:52. [By moving] it to Friday, there's a better chance of getting advising. These deadlines are an important component of effective advising. And [for] better planning and more intentionality, it's very important in my opinion that we make these changes."
Professor Gordon Chang asked, "Can you explain what the shaded areas are? It says the shaded areas are advising days available before teaching begins."
Registrar Black replied, "It's the idea of enrollment opening and that incentivizes students to seek out their advisors. Enrollment opens at the sixth week of the current quarter for the upcoming quarter."
Professor Chang observed, "I'm looking at the fall quarter. For example, when do dorms open? When can students start to come, the average student?"
Registrar Black was not certain.
Professor Chang thought it was August 17th, "So the day before the 17th doesn't mean anything in terms of trying to find advisors?"
Professor Bravman responded, "For freshman advising, which is a separate subset… we're going to be making for the very first time a specific effort to contact every freshman in advance of their arrival at school with professional advising from academic directors."
Registrar Black added, "We also have athletes arriving on campus in August. We hope that they could reach their advisors and prepare for their enrollment, because many of them have to be enrolled in order to compete."
Professor Chang noted, "It's my experience that students try to get to campuses as close to the beginning day as possible, which makes it very difficult for them to get any advising or talking to anybody, even get much information about courses other than what's available online, wherever they may be around the world."
Professor Buc commented, "Well, due to the fact that students will use e?mail to contact us…if we [provide] easy access to the syllabi, we can actually in some cases be confident to [know] whether they are nearby or not--that's also one of the advantages of [publishing the] syllabus [online]. But the extent of course description…and the kind of exams or papers [that] will be asked [will make it] so much better than what you have now."
Professor Chang replied, "I'm not questioning the wisdom, I'm just trying to think it through a bit. We've also talked about improved advising, having one-to-one contact with student advisors. I'm just wondering if this calendar and these shaded [areas indicating availability of advising] actually reflect that [intention]. Will the [students] be coming back to campus in time to have that one-on-one with [his or her] advisor, particularly in the fall?"
Professor Bravman replied, "A lot of these students return early. Actually…a lot of students come back too early, and so there are plenty of populations on both ends of that curve. For students who choose to come back the morning that classes start, it's going to be potentially a problem, that's right. Now we want students to be registered in something the first day of classes which is completely counter?procedure…[This new schedule] is better."
Registrar Black agreed, "It really represents an opportunity where advising could take place. I think you could perhaps assist in this, and that [was] Jonny's [Dorsey] point. The more material you can get out there virtually, [the more] helpful [it will be] to students as they're making their selections."
Professor Burchat had another question: "On the first day of classes…I think you mentioned that the [students] need to be planning for 12 units--was that a change, or is that the same?"
Registrar Black explained that it was not a change and that it represented the requirement for each quarter if the student has full-time status. If the student hasn't registered by the deadline, there will be some sort of penalty, probably financial, but the details remain to be worked out. The purpose of the penalty is to encourage students to register on time."
Chair Cohen commented, "I think another advantage of this is--you're starting on Monday, which gives another day to teach. I think that's a message in and of itself--that you're increasing the amount of teaching."
Professor Bravman added, "Especially winter quarter, when we lose two Mondays. That compensates for half of that."
Professor Harry Elam commented, "The time students have to choose in the fall can be longer because we're opening [advising], August 1st. So they have that time to really think about what they want and hopefully do consulting. And John [Bravman] mentioned the academic directors, which is a new advising system that is residentially based that students are taking more advantage of."
Professor Buc asked where the syllabi will be posted.
Registrar Black answered, "There are two sites, those are CourseWork and syllabus.stanford.edu. One is the University's learning management system, a very elaborate software, and the other is just a web page, a website, for the posting of PDFs and information related to the course."
Professor Burchat observed, "When you go into Course Work, automatically they post a syllabus."
Professor Bravman asked, "Is the physical printing of the course Bulletin actually going to stop completely?"
Professor Burchat interjected, "Starting when?"
Registrar Black: "At this time. We have had an online version of the document…all this year to improve its searchability. We're working with several departmental administrators to improve it, so that will be our effort this summer, to make sure that it can be as best as it can be."
Professor Burchat asked, "Is the decision [to stop printing the bulletin] completely financial, or is it a perceived lack of use? I think the paper course bulletin is incredibly useful. Partly for students stumbling across courses, they browse through the paper copy in a very different way than they can browse through online."
Professor Bravman commented, "Some students would flip through like I did. But I asked them about this and they don't look at the book at all. They are searching online. They have a different paradigm."
Professor Burchat demurred, "I know of examples where they are looking through the book."
Registrar Black relented: "We will work with the bookstore to make sure we can come up with a print?on?demand capability. So if somebody would want the Bulletin they could get it."
In answer to another question Registrar Black said that the plan was to have the Bulletin online, but downloadable as PDF.
Chair Cohen concluded the discussion by commenting: "I get the sense that we are applauding what you're doing. [It's] better for the students, better for education, and I think pretty good for the faculty too. I thank you, and Philippe, and Phil, for doing such a great job, doing what we want to do for education for students."
[applause]
Unfinished Business
There was no unfinished business.
New Business
There was no new business.
Adjournment
The motion to adjourn was moved, seconded and approved by voice vote.
Chair Cohen concluded his masterful debut as Senate Chair by saying to the Senate, "I want you all to let Karen know that we ended at 4:37 PM."
Respectfully submitted,
Rex L. Jamison, MD
Academic Secretary to the University