Shinya Yamanaka was born in Japan and attended the Gladstone Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. Yamanaka  moved to the Institute of Frontier Medical Sciences to study ES cells. When Yamanaka was introduced to the mixture of all 24 genes, he and his mentor observed several drug-resistant colonies. "These cells were similar to ES cells in morphology, proliferation and gene expression" (I1). Yamanaka went on to win a Nobel Prize for his discovery of induced pluripotent cells, revolutionizing stem cell research and modern day medicine (I1). 

Dr. Anthony Atala, M.D., is the Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Atala also holds the title Chair of Urology at Wake Forest University. During his career, Dr. Atala has received many awards, and some of the most notable awards, such as World Technology Award in Health and Medicine. Atala has grown and transplanted many organs as well. Atala is most known for his ground breaking work on bladders. Atala was able to grow bladders out of his patient's cells, and successfully transplant them in 7 teenagers. Click the image to see Atala's full interview. He is working on many more types of tissue in hopes that one day, there will no longer be a need for organ donors (I2, I3). 

Dr. James Alexander Thomson is a biologist who works with human embryonic stem cells and non-human embryonic stem cells. Thomson studies mammalism development and development in humans, and is studying the timing of development in many mammals (such as human, mice, and monkeys). Thomson can be credited (along with John Gearhart) as the first person to separate embryonic stem cells. Thompson has also discovered away to isolate induced pluripotent stem cells (I5). 

Athersys Inc. is a biotechnology company that focuses on regererative medicine. Athersys specializes in products such as MultiStem cell therapy and an allogeneic stem cell product. These products can solve issues such as; severe ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction, respiratory distress syndrome, leukemia, ect. Athersys also uses Multistem cell therapy to regenerate tissue for animals (I4). 

Vericel Corporation is a "biopharmaceutical company, researches, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells patient-specific expanded cellular therapies to repair and regenerate damaged tissues and organs" (I4). Vericel focuses on replacing cartilage, primarly in the knee and perminate skin replacements. Vericel also promotes multicellular therapy to find treatments for heart failure (I4). 

BioRestorative Therapies, Inc. use cell and tissue protocol, and adult stem cells to create their products. BioRestorative Therapies use brown fat stem cells to fight metabolic disorders. Through their research, they have found that brown fat burns calories, rather than storing energy. Therefore, brown fat stem cells can actually speed up metabolic rates and cause the patient to lose weight (I4).