Program Manager & International Liaison Officer, Global Alliance for iPSC Therapies
Dr Sullivan is Program Manager and International Liaison Officer for the Global Alliance for iPSC Therapies (GAiT).
GAiT works to establish a HLA-homozygous haplobank network for clinical-grade induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) lines [Barry et al. 2015, Sullivan et al. 2018]. Such cells would represent an appropriate starting material for allogeneic therapeutic development worldwide.
GAiT activity is funded by an international consortium of organisations: the French Institute of Health and Medical Research, INSERM (Paris, France), the University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Hong Kong), the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (London, UK), the Centre for Commercialisation of Regenerative Medicine (Toronto, Canada), the Korea HLA-Typed iPSC Banking Initiative (Seoul, Korea), and the New York Stem Cell Foundation (New York, USA). More information on GAiT and its sponsors is available at www.gait.global.
Dr Sullivan initially earned his PhD at the Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), under Professor Ian Wilmut and Dr Jim McWhir, becoming one of the first researchers in Europe to culture human embryonic stem cells. His work focused on pluripotency induction in human somatic cells.
Thereafter, Dr Sullivan worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and UCSD deepening his expertise of other human stem cell types (including induced pluripotent stem cells) and their medical applications.
While at Harvard, he read ‘How Economics Shapes Science’ by Dr Paula Stefan, which stimulated his interest in the financial, as well as the scientific and clinical, hurdles that must be surmounted to bring stem cell therapies to the clinic. Thereafter, he also worked for Novartis, dealing with clinical trial management and compliance, to better understand manufacturing, logistic, and regulatory challenges to bringing new therapeutics to market and earned an MBA at Trinity College Dublin focusing on risk mitigation during AMTP development.
Prior to his current position, Dr Sullivan was the Chief Scientific Officer of the Irish Stem Cell Foundation, where working with others, he facilitated the introduction of stem cell legislation into the Irish Program for Government. He was also a Project Support Officer for the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service 2017-2021. In March 2021, he founded Lindville Bio, an ATMP consultancy service specializing in scalable manufacture of Pluripotent Stem Cells (PSC) and therapeutic development therefrom.
He is also a Member of the Steering Committee for the International Stem Cell Banking Initiative (ISCBI), the Autologous iPSC Therapy Consortium, the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Advisory Committee at University College Cork, Ireland, and is Chief Editor of ‘Human Embryonic Stem Cells – The Practical Handbook’ published by Wiley & Sons.
Stephen Sullivan’s LinkedIn Profile
Recent GAiT Publications
Sullivan S et al. (2018) Quality control guidelines for clinical-grade human induced pluripotent stem cell lines Regen Med 13(7):859-866.
Sullivan S et al. (2020) The Global Alliance for iPSC Therapies (GAiT). Stem Cell Res. 49:102036.
Sullivan S et al. (2020) Haplobanking induced pluripotent stem cells for clinical use. Stem Cell Res. 2020 49:102035.
