Dr Alan Colman

Alan Colman

Principal Investigator, Stem Cell Disease Models
embryonic and adult stem cells, differentiation, drug discovery, customized stem cells

Email: alan.colman@imb.a-star.edu.sg

Biography

Alan Colman is currently a Principal Investigator in the A*STAR Institute of Medical Biology and also Executive Director of the Singapore Stem Cell Consortium.His research involves the use of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) lines to investigate the pathophysiology of human congenital disease. Currently the lab focuses on diseases of premature ageing, central nervous system monogenicdisease, and heart compliants such as dilated cardiomyopathy.

Alan Colman obtained a BA degree in Biochemistry in Oxford (1971) and a PhD under John Gurdon, a pioneer of the field of nuclear transfer, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK (1974). After a series of academic appointments in Oxford and Warwick Universities, he became Professor of Biochemistry in the University of Birmingham, UK. The focus of his academic career was the area of eukaryotic protein secretion, with a particular emphasis on the use of frog oocytes and eggs as in vivo test tubes.

From 1987 until March 2002, he was research director of the company PPL Therapeutics in Edinburgh, UK. This company specialized in the production of transgenic livestock that produced human therapeutic proteins in their milk. PPL attracted considerable media attention because of its participation, together with the Roslin Institute, in the technique of somatic nuclear transfer. This work led to Dolly, the world's first sheep cloned from an adult somatic cell (1996), Polly and Molly, the first cloned transgenic livestock (1997), Diana and Cupid, the first livestock with targeted genetic changes (2000), Millie et al., the first cloned pigs (2000) and, finally, Austin and crew, the first homozygous alpha-gal-transferase knock-out pigs (2003).

From April 2002 - June 2007, he worked for the Singapore - based company, ES Cell International (ESI), first as its Chief Scientific Officer (April 2002 - February 2005) and then its Chief Executive Officer (February 2005 - June 2007). ESI specialized in the development of human embryonic stem cell-based therapies for the treatment of diabetes and congestive heart failure.

Representative Publications

1. Schneike A, Kind A, Ritchie, W, Mycock,K, Scott, A, Ritchie, M, Wilmut I, Colman A and Campbell K (1997) Human Factor IX transgenic sheep produced by transfer of nuclei from transfected fetal oocytes. Science 278 2130-2133.

2. Ashworth D, Bishop,M, Campbell,K, Colman A, Kind A, Schnieke, A,Blott, S Griffin, H , Haley C, McWhir J, Wilmut I (1998) DNA microsatellite analysis of Dolly. Nature 394 329.

3. Gurdon J B and Colman A (1999) The Future of Cloning. Nature 402 743-746.

4. Shiels P, Kind A Campbell, K, Waddington D, Wilmut I, Colman A, Schneike A (1999) Analysis of telomere lengths in cloned sheep Nature 399 316-317.

5. McCreath K, Howcroft J, Campbell K, Colman A, Schneike A and Kind A (2000) Production of gene-targeted sheep by nuclear transfer from cultured somatic cells. Nature 405 1066-69.

6. Shiels P, Kind A, Campbell K, Wilmut I, Waddington, Colman A, and Schneike A (1999) Analysis of telomere length in Dolly, a Sheep derived by nuclear transfer Cloning 1 119-125.

7. Polejaeva, I. Chen S-H, Vaught T, Page R, Mullins J, Ball S, Boone J, Walker S, Dai Y, Ayares, D Colman A. and Campbell K. (2000) Cloned pigs produced by nuclear transfer from adult somatic cells Nature 407 86-90.

8. Yifan Dai, Todd D. Vaught, Jeremy Boone, Shu-Hung Chen, Carol J. Phelps, Suyapa Ball , Jeff A. Monahan, Peter M. Jobst , Ashley E. Lamborn, Jamie L. Cowell-Lucero, Kevin D.Wells, Kenneth J. McCreath, Alan Colman , Irina A. Polejaeva and David L. Ayares Targeted Disruption of the 1,3-galactosyltransferase Gene in Cloned Pigs (2002) Nature Biotechnology 20 251-255.

9. Colman A (2004) Making new beta cells from stem cells. Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology 15(3):337-45.

10. Buzzard JJ, Gough NM, Crook JM, Colman A (2004) Karyotype of human ES cells during extended culture. Nat Biotechnol. 22:381-2.

11. Crook, J. M. Peura, T. T. Kravets, L. Bosman, A. G. Buzzard, J. J. Horne, R. Hentze, H. Dunn, N. R. Zweigerdt, R. Chua, F. Upshall, A. Colman, A. (2007) The Generation of Six Clinical-Grade Human Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Cell Stem Cell 1 490-494.

12. Phillips, B. W. Hentze, H. Rust, W. L. Chen, Q. P. Chipperfield, H. Tan, E. K. Abraham, S. Sadasivam, A. Soong, P. L. Wang, S. T. Lim, R. Sun, W. Colman, A. Dunn, N. R. (2007) Directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into the pancreatic endocrine lineage. Stem Cells and Development 16 561-578.

13. Dai, W. Field, L. J. Rubart, M. Reuter, S. Hale, S. L. Zweigerdt, R. Graichen, R. E. Kay, G. L. Jyrala, A. J. Colman, A. Davidson, B. P. Pera, M. Kloner, R. A. (2007) Survival and maturation of human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes in rat hearts J Mol Cell Cardiol 43 504-516.

14. Graichen, R. Xu, X. Braam, S. R. Balakrishnan, T. Norfiza, S. Sieh, S. Soo, S. Y. Tham, S. C. Mummery, C. Colman, A. Zweigerdt, R. Davidson, B. P. (2008) Enhanced cardiomyogenesis of human embryonic stem cells by a small molecular inhibitor of p38 MAPK Differentiation 76 357-370.

15. Xu XQ, Graichen R, Soo SY, Balakrishnan T, Bte Rahmat SN, Sieh S, Tham SC, Freund C, Moore J, Mummery C, Colman A, Zweigerdt R, Davidson BP. (2008) Chemically defined medium supporting cardiomyocyte differentiation of human embryonic stem cells. Differentiation. 76:958–970.

16. Xu XQ, Zweigerdt R, Soo SY, Ngoh ZX, Tham SC, Wang ST, Graichen R, Davidson B, Colman A, Sun W.(2008) Highly enriched cardiomyocytes from human embryonic stem cells. Cytotherapy. 2008;10(4):376-89.

17. Wu D, Raymond J, Wu M, Chatterji S, Ren Q, Graham JE, Bryant DA, Robb F, Colman A, Tallon LJ, Badger JH, Madupu R, Ward NL, Eisen JA. (2009) Complete genome sequence of the aerobic CO-oxidizing thermophile Thermomicrobium roseum. PLoS One. 4(1): e4207.

18. Colman A and Dreesen O (2009) Induced pluripotent stem cells and the stability of the differentiated state EMBO Reports 10 714-721.

19. Colman A and Dreesen O (2009) Pluripotent Stem Cells and Disease Modeling Cell Stem Cell 5 244-247.

20. Xu XQ, Soo SY, Sun W, Zweigerdt R. (2009) Global expression profile of highly enriched cardiomyocytes derived from human embryonic stem cells. Stem Cells. 27(9):2163-74.

21. Kobayashi NR, Sui L, Tan PS, Lim EK, Chan J, Choolani M, Crook JM. (2010) Modelling disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 loss of function in human neural progenitor cells: tools for molecular studies of human neurodevelopment and neuropsychiatric disorders. Mol Psychiatry. 15(7):672-5.

22. Sivarajah S, Raj GS, Mathews AJ, Sahib NB, Hwang WS, Crook JM. (2010) The generation of GLP-grade human embryonic stem cell banks from four clinical-grade cell lines for preclinical research. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Anim. 46(3-4):210-6.