Department of Comparative Medicine, University of Washington, South Lake Union, N-501A Box 358056, Seattle, WA 98109-4714 Phone: 206-616-5143 Email: cware@uw.edu

Carol Ware received her PhD in 1986 from the National University of Ireland, University College, Dublin in Embryology and Reproductive Physiology. She was a Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin until 1988, where she studied embryonic stem cell derivation and nuclear transfer. She joined the Molecular Immunology group at Immunex as a Research Scientist and moved to the University of Washington in 1995 and is now Director of the Tom and Sue Ellison Stem Cell Core and Associate Director for the Institute of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM).

Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are pluripotent cells capable of self-renewing indefinitely in vitro and differentiating into a broad array of cells types. Thus, human (h)ESC provide a model system to understand "stemness". Through the ability to differentiate, ESC have the potential to provide access to human fetal development, appropriate cells to test pharmacological toxity and material for tissue transplantation therapies. Dr. Ware’s research is involved with improving both the self-renewal and differentiation capacity of pluripotent stem cells. This involves development of an effective technique to freeze clusters of hESC, characterization of hESC lines and studies into epigenetic control of self-renewal. The Ellison Core is also starting new hESC and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines, is carrying out studies into the matrix effects on hESC self-renewal and is developing new approaches toward understanding hESC developmental capacity.

The hESC Core is housed within ISCRM. In addition to facilitating research for all ISCRM affiliated investigators toward understanding ESC and their potential, the core provides training in ESC culture and associated methods and serves as a conduit for a number of ISCRM sponsered educational activities.

hESC Core Laboratory Members

Lab Phone – 221-0355

Angel M. Nelson Research Scientist III Phone- 616-7994 Email- angel@uw.edu Chris Cavanaugh Research Scientist II Phone- 221-7986 Email-ccava@uw.edu Jennifer Hesson Research Scientist I Phone- 685-4541 Email-jhesson@uw.edu

Selected publications:

Ware CB, Horowitz MC, Renshaw BR, Hunt JS, Liggitt D, Koblar SA, Gliniak BC, McKenna HJ, Papayannopoulou T, Thoma B, Donovan PJ, Peschon JJ, Bartlett PF, Willis CR, Wright BD, CarpenterMK, Davison BL and Gearing DP. (1995) Targeted disruption of the low-affinity leukemia inhibitory factor receptor gene causes placental, skeletal, neural and metabolic defects and results in perinatal death. Development 121:1283-1299.

Ware CB, Nelson AM and Liggitt D. (2003) Late Gestation Modulation of Fetal Glucocorticoid Effects Requires the Receptor for Leukemia Inhibitory Factor: An Observational Study. Reprod Biol Endocrinol 1:43.

Ware CB, Nelson AM and Blau CA. (2005) Controlled-rate freezing of human ES cells. Bio Techniques 38:879-833.

Ware CB, Nelson AM and Blau CA. (2006) A comparison of NIH-approved ES cell lines. Stem Cells 24:2677-2684.

Bonig H, Chang K-H, Geisen C, Seifried E and Ware C (2008) Blood types of current embryonic stem cell lines are not suitable for culturing "universal donor" RBCs. Transfusion 48:1039-1040

Ware CB , Wang L, Mecham BH, Forough R, Nelson AM, Dauphin DS, Buckingham B, Bar M, Lim R, Askari B, Gartler SM, Shen L, Issa J-P, Tewari M, Lamba DA, Pavlidis P, Duan Z and Blau CA (2009) Histone deacetylase inhibition elicits an evolutionarily conserved self-renewal program in embryonic stem cells. Cell Stem Cell 4:359-369.