NCRM NICHE International Stem Cell meet is going virtual in 2020

The XV edition of NCRM NICHE (www.ncrmniche.org), on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, incorporating the exclusive, active knowledge gaining event, The Fujio Cup Quiz, conducted regularly since 2006 every October, will be conducted this year as a virtual event, opening doors for scholars from all over the world to participate, according to the organizers, M/s GN Corporation (GNC) & JBM Inc, Japan.

The XV edition of NCRM NICHE (www.ncrmniche.org), on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, incorporating the exclusive, active knowledge gaining event, The Fujio Cup Quiz, conducted regularly since 2006 every October, will be conducted this year as a virtual event, opening doors for scholars from all over the world to participate, according to the orgzers, M/s GN Corporation (GNC) & JBM Inc, Japan.

Two levels of prelims between August 2nd-20th and the final rounds of the Fujio Cup Quiz (FCQ) between September 1 to 30 will be conducted through a virtual platform.

The winners will share their winning story along with a presentation on stem cell research on October 18th & 19th 2020, during the NCRM NICHE event, the inaugural anniversary commemorative event of Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM), a Japan centred research institute working on cell-based therapies and novel biomaterial technologies.

The orgzers are planning to invite the winners of the Fujio Cup 2020 to Japan depending on the ease down of COVID-19 related restrictions, tentatively in 2021, when they will be visiting top institutes working on cutting edge technologies in regenerative medicine in Tokyo, including the Edogawa Evolutionary Lab of Science (EELS, www.eels.tokyo).

The rapidly evolving specialty of regenerative medicine has phenomenal potentials to yield novel solutions to unmet medical needs; is an interdisciplinary field in which chemists making scaffolds, physicists working on physical forces and biologists working on cell culture and tissue engineering have to collaborate amongst themselves and with physicians of various clinical specialties to develop innovative treatment options.

"Such path-breaking solutions need to be developed over a period of time, through ceaseless interactions among scientists of various domains & NCRM NICHE has been serving continuously as a platform for such inter-disciplinary interaction among budding scientists and clinicians over the past 15 years. Osteoarthritis affected knee joint of elderly, yielding cartilage tissue expressing pluripotency biomarkers when grown in the lab (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reth.2020.03.006), is an out of the box solution with numerous potentials to revolutionize cell therapy options for cartilage damage caused by sports injury as well that develops with age-related wear and tear; an outcome of NCRM NICHE & Fujio Cup Quiz," said Dr Shojiro Katoh, Chief Orthopaedic Surgeon& President, Edogawa Hospitals and head of EELS.

Yesteryear participants of Fujio Cup Quiz have become scholars of prestigious institutes of global eminence including Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, University of Toronto, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Berlin-Brandenburg School for Regenerative Therapies& Tokyo University.

Fujio Cup Quiz alumni also have a priority channel for the nomination of the Edogawa NICHE prize (www.edogawcheprize.org), award, established in 2018, which honours individuals who are physicians and/or scientists from around the world chosen by the Jinseisha-NCRM committee, based on their contribution to the development of a novel solution that enables prevention or diagnosis or treatment of any disease, through an inter-disciplinary interaction among different fields of science.

The 2018 Edogawa NICHE Prize was awarded to Prof James Edgar Till for his discovery of stem cells & the 2019 Edogawa NICHE Prize was awarded to Dr Steven A Rosenberg, for his pioneering work in developing effective adoptive immune-therapies to tackle cancer.

The recipient of the 2020 Edogawa NICHE Prize will be announced on the 15th of August and the commemorative lecture of the awardee is also planned together with the visit of FCQ winners to Japan in 2021.

Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Doctoral (PhD) students of Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Veterinary Science, Dentistry and Medicine between the ages of 20 and 32 years, registered in an accredited academic institute from any country that is a member state of the United Nations (UN) are eligible to participate in the Fujio Cup Quiz (FCQ).

NCRM NICHE has an Oral Presentation session, in which all original works on Basic Sciences, Translational Studies, and Clinical studies in the field of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine including the allied fields of Cell Biology, Cancer Biology, Immunotherapy, and Cell-based therapies are eligible for submission as abstracts. Selected abstracts will have an opportunity for virtual presentation on October, 18th & 19th 2020.

30th of July, 2020 is the deadline for submission of abstracts &FCQ registration. Further details at https://www.ncrmniche.org/ncrmniche2020/registration.html

Prof Masaharu Seno from Okayama University, Japan working on Development of Cancer stem cells from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) prepared from fibroblasts and Dr Maria Cristina Nostrofrom University of Toronto working on generating functional b cells from human pluripotent stem cells will be delivering virtual lectures in the plenary session of the event scheduled on October 18, 2020.

Institutes who wish to send their students and scholars for participation in the event and also those who wish to have a live broadcast of this event in their institute or to their students through their virtual platforms may contact us at webmaster@ncrmniche.org

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( With inputs from ANI )