Jeanne Loring's Biography

Jeanne Loring, Professor Emeritus, The Scripps Research Institute; Founder, Aspen Neuroscience

Dr. Loring is a pioneer in human stem cell research, having generated human embryonic stem cells that were approved for NIH funding in 2001. She is currently Professor emeritus at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, where she was founding director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine. She serves on scientific advisory boards for academic institutes and companies and is on the ethics advisory panel (MEAP) for the pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA.

She is a member of honorary societies including Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and AIMBE. Her awards include the Rosalyn Franklin Award (2022), the American Physiological Society Solomon A. Berson Distinguished Lectureship (2022), 11 Most Influential Women in Advanced Therapies (Phacillitate, 2020), Stem Cell Pioneer Award (Xconomy, 2019), Stem Cell Action Advocacy Award (2015), Stem Cell Person of the Year (2015).

Over the 20 years that her team has worked with human hPSCs, they reported the first method for single cell mRNA sequencing and the first whole methylome sequences of undifferentiated and differentiated hPSCs. They were also first to publish mRNA and microRNA expression profiles of hPSCs, recurrent genomic structural variations in hPSCs, and reactivation of imprinted regions and inactive X chromosomes in iPSCs. They developed PluriTest, the bioinformatic assay for pluripotency, and generated the first iPSCs from an endangered species.

Dr. Loring has founded two companies, Arcos Biosciences (1999), which is now part of Vertex, and Aspen Neuroscience (2018), which is focusing on autologous neuron replacement therapy for Parkinson’s disease.