Hossein Baharvand

Hossein Baharvand
Hossein Baharvand
Born	(1972-02-25) February 25, 1972 Isfahan, Iran
Nationality	Iran
Fields	Stem cell research
Institutions	Royan Institute University of Science and Culture
Alma mater	Shiraz University Shahid Beheshti University Kharazmi University

Hossein Baharvand is an Iranian stem cell and developmental biologist and director of Royan Institute^[1] for Stem Cell Biology and Technology.

He firstly joined Royan Institute in 1995. He received his B.Sc. in Biology from Shiraz University in 1994, and M.Sc. in Developmental Biology from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran in 1996. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from Khwarizmi University (former Tarbiat Moallem University) in 2004. He is the founder of Department of Stem Cells in 2002 as well as Royan institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology in 2010. In 2012, he became Full Professor at Royan institute. He is also appointed as the head of Department of Developmental Biology at University of Science and Culture (2006-now).^[2][3]

For the first time, he generated the mouse and human embryonic stem cells (2003) and induced pluripotent stem cells (2008) in Iran.^[4] This has enabled his team to pursue many avenues of research into translational research and regenerative medicine. He has focused his research interests on improving the translational research and regenerative medicine mainly through the understanding of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology and Biologically inspired Engineering.^[5] He has been working on transdifferentiation and pluripotent stem cell differentiation into cardiomyocytes, neural cells, hepatocytes and beta cells. He has also been studying the pluripotency mechanism; and germ cell biology. In addition, he has been investigating the biologically inspiring engineering on stem cells and developmental biology. He has also been making numerous contributions to clinical trials and tissue-specific stem cell transplantation; as well as developing cell manufacturing.^[2]

He has given numerous invited talks and tutorials. He is the editor of four international books which were published by Springer (2010 and 2012) and John Wiley, USA (2015). He has published 252 international ^[6] and 100 national peer-reviewed papers, as well as seven chapters in international books, seven books in Persian, and eight translated English text books into Persian.

As of February 2016, Google Scholar reports over 5100 citations and h-index 37 to his work.^[7] He is currently the editorial board member of eight international journals (e.g., Journal of Biological Chemistry^[8] and Scientific Reports from Nature Publishing Group^[9]). He holds two USA patents on the basis of his research. He has received 28 international and national awards including 10th (2004), 12th (2006), and 17th (2012) annual Razi research award on medical science hosted by Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education, 26th Khwarizmi International Award (2013), hosted by Iran Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, 27th annual book of the year of the Islamic republic of Iran (2010), Academy of Medical Sciences of Iran (Dr. Hadavi’s Award in 2010, 2014), International Prof. Yalda Award for Excellence in Medical Sciences (2015) and distinguished Iranian scientist in Biotechnology (2015). He is the winner of the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) Prize for research in the field of Biology (2010). Moreover, he was introduced as Prominent Professor in 3rd term of Allameh Tabatabaei’s Award hosted by Iran vice Presidency for Science and Technology, Presidency and National Elite Foundation (2014).^[2] He is the winner of the 2014 UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences for improving the quality of human life with his stem cell research and its numerous applications in regenerative medicine.^[10]

References