Dr. Vukasin M. Jovanovic is a research fellow in the Stem Cell Translation Laboratory within the Division of Preclinical Innovation at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). He joined NCATS in May 2018 after completing his doctorate in physiology and cell biology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Prior to this, he earned his master's degree in medical biochemistry from the University of Belgrade in Serbia. During his doctoral studies, Jovanovic's work was on elucidating the role of the BMP/SMAD pathway in orchestrating neurogenesis during the development of neural stem cells into midbrain dopaminergic neurons. At NCATS, Jovanovic's research focuses on harnessing multi-omics and single-cell technologies to develop diverse differentiation methods for efficiently generating human brain cell types from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Through extensive cellular and molecular characterizations, he has established standard operating procedures for the robotic biomanufacturing of these human cell types, facilitating their use in drug screening and translational applications.

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Dr. Carlos A. Tristan, Ph.D., M.S., serves as the director of the Stem Cell Translation Laboratory (SCTL) within NCATS’ Division of Preclinical Innovation. Dr. Tristan's work revolves around leveraging multi-omic technologies to develop and optimize protocols for maintaining and differentiating human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), thereby accelerating the translational application of hPSC-derived cells in disease modeling, regenerative therapy and drug discovery. He joined SCTL in 2016, assuming the role of staff scientist, where he focused on establishing chemical, robotic, high-throughput and multi-omic platforms to address current challenges in the hPSC field. Prior to his tenure at NCATS, Dr. Tristan conducted postdoctoral research at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research in Bethesda, Maryland, delving into the molecular mechanisms of tumor-initiating cells in glioblastoma multiforme. He earned his Ph.D. in cellular and molecular medicine from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where his research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences uncovered novel signaling mechanisms and crosstalk among cell stress-signaling cascades. Dr. Tristan holds an M.S. in biology, as well as two Bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and biology, all from the California State University, Fresno.