Dr. Temple Smith graduated with a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics from the University of Colorado in 1969. Then did a National Institutes of Health (USA) postdoctoral fellowship under the direction of the mathematician, Stanislaw Ulam, and the molecular biologist, John Sadler. There he carried out a detailed analysis of the E. coli Lac operator mutations. In 1979, Dr. Smith was one of the founders of GenBank, initially at Los Alamos National Laboratory. There, he with Walter Goad developed a statistical mechanical model of the Lac operon system similar to those now being developed in system biology. Dr. Smith is a co-developer with Michael Waterman of the Smith-Waterman sequence alignment algorithm, underlying most DNA and protein sequence comparison methods today. Dr. Smith spent a sabbatical year working with Harold Morowitz at Yale resulting in a seminal paper on the relationship between biology, physics and history. In 1988 he moved to the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, there organizing a computational biology research center and initiating a series of international meetings, “Genes and Machines” on the application of computers in modern biology. In 1991 the center moved to Boston University, becoming director of the BioMolecular Engineering Research Center in the College of Engineering. Working there with Richard Lathrop and others, he helped develop new protein threading and Discrete State software. Dr. Smith has continued his research in many areas, including the time calibration of HIV viral evolution, and with Harvard’s Eva Neer the modeling of the WD-repeat protein family. As a member of Fly Base, he helped carry out a full-genome comparative evolutionary analysis of the Drosophila clade. More recently he has investigated the origin of the eukaryotic cell and the evolutionary of the cellular translation system. Dr. Smith was inducted into AIMBE “for extraordinary contributions in defining and advancing the field of bioinformatics, with emphasis on novel engineering methods to predict protein structure and function” and made a follow of the ISCB. He has over 200 reviewed publications and has been the primary advisor for over 20 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. As of 2010 Dr. Smith became Professor Emeritus in BioMedical Engineering at Boston University. Dr. Smith is an avid skier, ice climber, sailor, hockey coach and family man with four sons. He is also the co-founder of a small gene engineering company, Modular Genetics, Inc. in Woburn, Massachusetts.

His research is centered on the application of various computer science and mathematical methods for the discovery of the syntactic and semantic patterns in nucleic acid and amino acid sequences. In recent years this has focus on molecular evolution of protein families. such as the WD-repeat beta propellers, translation associated GTPase, and the ribosomal proteins

I worked at the Roslin Institute for 34 years and was involved in the Cloning project. I was the embryologist who cloned the first animals from cultured cells Morag and Megan which was the enabling technology which led to the birth of Dolly the sheep the following year. The project then progressed to produce cloned sheep which produced “human blood factor 9”. Subsequently I used my skills as an embryologist to develop several methods of producing transgenic animals. I took early retirement from Roslin and travelled extensively teaching some of the techniques I had developed at Roslin. Notable projects have been to act as consultant on the project in Dubai to produce the first cloned camel. I also acted as consultant to a project in Kenya producing the first cloned native breed of cattle.

My interests are in rescuing rare and endangered species of animal and passing on the skills and techniques I developed at the Roslin Institute to other scientists.

Ana Colette Mauricio has a degree on Veterinary Medicine since 1995, a PhD on Veterinary Sciences since 1999 from Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária (FMV) - Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (UTL) and Habilitation in Veterinary Sciences (ICBAS-UP) since 2011. The PhD experimental work was developed at Instituto Gulbenkian Ciência (IGC) in Oeiras, Portugal, at Freiburg Medicine Faculty in Germany and at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT) from Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL). At the present, she is an Associated Professor with Habilitation, from the Veterinary Clinics of do Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas de Abel Salazar (ICBAS), Universidade do Porto (UP), and she is the vice-President of the Pedagogic Council of ICBAS – UP. She also belongs to the Scientific Council of ICBAS-UP and to the Ethic Comission for Health Sciences from University of Porto (UP). She belongs to the Scientific Committee of the Veterinary Sciences Doctoral Program at ICBAS – UP. She is the Scientific Coordinator of Regenerative Medicine and Experimental Surgery sub-unit from Centro de Estudos de Ciência Animal (CECA) of Instituto de Ciências e Tecnologias Agrárias e Agro-Alimentares (ICETA), Universidade do Porto (UP). She is one of the founding shareholders of Biosckin, Molecular and Cell Therapies, S.A since 2007 with established scientific protocol with UP for development of new cell therapies and medical devices. Biosckin, Molecular and Cell Therapies, S.A. is a biotech company operating in the area of healthcare, whose main activity is the cryopreservation of stem cells from umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord tissue, with more than 25.000 samples cryopreserved, approved by the National Authorities (Direcção Geral de Saúde, DGS), and following the Netcord recommendations. Within the strategic technological framework defined by Biosckin, in 2008, the company proposed the creation of a centre for Research, Development and Innovation (RDI), known as BioMat&Cell, coordinated by Ana Colette Maurício, and for this purpose a project was submitted to QREN (the National Strategic Reference Framework) under the auspices of the System of Incentives for Technological Research and Development, which received financial support. The RDI centre is well adjusted to the company’s innovation policy with respect to these two areas of intervention. The first area performs work in relation to the development of new Biomaterials, and the second in relation to Cellular Therapies using stem cells from umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord tissue. In April 2012, the RDI centre was certified according to NP4457. For the past 12 years she coordinates a multidisciplinary research group of Experimental Surgery and Regenerative Medicine, working with several biomaterials and cellular therapies. She started working with embryonic stem cells obtained by somatic nuclear transfer for therapeutic use; with Ian Wilmut´s group (Dolly’s cloned sheep). Several relevant publications had been produced and conducted to a PhD thesis that she co-supervised together with Ian Wilmut and to the first Portuguese cloned animal (R Ribas, B Oback, W Ritchie, T Chebotareva, J Taylor, AC Maurício, M Sousa, I Wilmut, 2006. Cloning and Stem Cells 8(1): 10; R Ribas, J Taylor, C McCorquodale, AC Maurício, M Sousa, I Wilmut, 2006. Biology of Reproduction 74: 307; R Ribas, B Oback, W Ritchie, T Chebotareva, T Ferrier, C Clarke, J Taylor, E Gallagher, AC Maurício, M Sousa, I Wilmut, 2005. Cloning and Stem Cells 7(2): 126). But ethical issues related to the collection and manipulation of human embryonic stem cells, even for therapeutic use is very controversial and understandable. So, more recently the potential of fetal stem cells derived from extra-embryonic tissues has been deeply investigated by her research group. Therefore, a continued effort to identify and characterize novel stem cell populations appears critical for widespread clinical success. This effort implies in vitro studies, experimental surgery and in vivo testing, before the clinical trials and the compassive treatment in such clinical cases where the traditional and standard treatments failed. Her research groups works exactly in this direction, so she created a multidisciplinary team, including Veterinaries, Engineers, Medical Doctors that through Experimental Surgery have a crucial role in the development of biomaterials and cellular therapies, allowing a close share of knowledge between biomaterials design, development of cellular systems, and surgeons needs when related to specific clinical cases. This group has several recent relevant publications in the research areas of nerve, bone, musculoskeletal and vascular tissue regeneration. In her laboratory have been working several PhD and Post-Doctoral students from various countries who have acquired a high level of competence in the study of tissue regeneration. She is the supervisor of several PhD, Post- Doctoral and Master students (12 PhD thesis already concluded with success and 6 PhD thesis on going), she is the co-author of a large number of scientific articles published in Indexed Journals (she publishes as Maurício AC) and of several scientific book chapters. She was the principal researcher of several national and international scientific projects.

For the past 12 years she coordinates a multidisciplinary research group of Experimental Surgery and Regenerative Medicine, working with several biomaterials and cellular therapies. She started working with embryonic stem cells obtained by somatic nuclear transfer for therapeutic use; with Ian Wilmut´s group (Dolly’s cloned sheep).