Jo Mountford's Biography

Jo Mountford, Lecturer, University of Glasgow

As basic and translational scientist, my studies have focussed on control mechanisms that regulate the behaviour of stem cells, initially focussing on normal and leukaemic haemopoietic stem cells but more recently on human embryonic stem cells. I completed a PhD at University of Birmingham (UK) in 1994 and subsequent post-doc positions in Strasbourg, Oxford and Memphis before being appointed to a Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service funded post at the University of Glasgow in 2002.
Our on-going focus is on the differentiation of mesodermal lineages from hESC, foremost of these being blood but also endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes. Over the longer term we are seeking to convert our lab methods to GMP compliance in order to assess the clinical utility of cells derived from hESC as cell therapies or as drug screening platforms.
We are part of a large, collaborative Proof of Principle project funded by the Wellcome Trust to generate cGMP grade erythrocytes from hESC for potential transfusion use. This collaborative is led by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and comprises Univ of Edinburgh, Roslin Cells, the National Blood Service and University of Glasgow. In March 2011, with Heriot Watt, Edinburgh and Dundee Universities, we received a further large grant from the Scottish Funding Council for the translation of red cell production and to move towards industrial scale production.