About The Team

Martin-Ibanez received her bachelor’s degree in pharmacy, master’s degree in pharmacy and pharmaceutical technology and PhD in stem cells and neuroscience at the University of Barcelona. Her scientific career has been focused on the study of stem cells and their application in cell therapy strategies. In 2012, she set up an academic good manufacturing practices (GMP) facility (Creatio) for the manufacturing of cell and gene therapy products for early Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. As the qualified person and QA manager, Martin-Ibanez led and coordinated a cross-functional team involved in process development, manufacturing, quality control testing and quality assurance. In 2017, she began working as a consultant providing advisory services to support scientific and regulatory activities during early development of advanced therapy medicinal products. In 2019 Martin-Ibanez joined the Cedars-Sinai Biomanufacturing Center (CBC) as a process development scientist. She is currently the CBC’s manufacturing manager.

Xiong received his medical training and began his medical career in the Department of Medicine at Henan Medical University. He completed his post-doctoral training in the Molecular and Gene Therapy Unit at the University of Manchester. Xiong has extensive experience in molecular biology and viral vector production, including adenoviral, lentiviral and AAV. He has a special interest in gene and cell therapy, genome engineering and their applications in stem cells to enable efficient discovery of drugs and treatment of intractable diseases.  

Panther is an associate biomedical scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Biomanufacturing Center, where she is responsible for generating over 700 induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines and now manages the research and development team. She has worked at Cedars-Sinai for over seven years. During that time, she has been involved in many different projects, primarily Answer ALS. Panther has a bachelor of science in biology from California State University, San Bernardino. 

Frank leads the motor neuron production team at the Cedars-Sinai Biomanufacturing Center and has 10 years of basic and clinical research experience. Prior to joining the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center research community, his work at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center focused on the regulation of adipose tissue metabolism by estrogens. Currently, Frank oversees the culturing and differentiation of 1,000 patient-generated iPSC lines into motor neurons for the landmark Answer ALS project.

Gomez has worked at Cedars-Sinai since 2015 and been working with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) since 2011. As a biomedical specialist, she focuses on the maintenance, expansion and banking of iPSCs. She is also working on integrating an automation system to the workflow. Gomez takes great pride in maintaining the quality of the iPSCs. She has a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and a master of engineering from Osaka University.

Prior to her position at the Cedars-Sinai Biomanufacturing Center (CBC), Liu worked as a research assistant at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute. She also worked at the Henan Institute of Medical Science and Henan Medical University as a research assistant and medical resident with a specialization in ultrasonic imaging. Liu currently is responsible for characterization (e.g., ICC, EB Scorecard, Karyotype, EBNA-PCR, T-cell clonality, pluripotency qPCR) of all iPSCs generated at the CBC and training new members for the QC side.  

Perez studied microbiology and cell science at the University of Florida from 2012 to 2016 and graduated with a bachelor of science. He has carried out a variety of research projects at the University of Florida, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Riverside. Perez’s lab experience in microbiology ranges from bacterial to mammalian cell culturing, computational biology and bioinformatics.

Meepe graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a bachelor of science in biology. She conducted research in the lab of Yutaka Niihara, MD, at LA BioMed at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She received her master’s in biology at California State University, Long Beach while a researcher in the lab of Douglas Pace, PhD, and then completed her thesis on calcium-binding proteins in the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Meepe joined Cedars-Sinai in 2019 to pursue her interest in regenerative medicine.

Pinedo earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from California Lutheran University in 2016. After graduating, he worked as a clinical lab technician at Esoterix Inc., where he contributed to the successful completion of a large number of endocrinology assays. He then joined Hygiena, where he took part in the manufacturing of bacterial detection kits. In October 2018, Pinedo joined the Cedars-Sinai Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) Core, where he has manufactured stem cell lines and aided neuronal differentiation.

Prior to her position at the Cedars-Sinai Biomanufacturing Center (CBC), Liu worked as a research assistant at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute. She also worked at the Henan Institute of Medical Science and Henan Medical University as a research assistant and medical resident with a specialization in ultrasonic imaging. Liu currently is responsible for characterization (e.g., ICC, EB Scorecard, Karyotype, EBNA-PCR, T-cell clonality, pluripotency qPCR) of all iPSCs generated at the CBC and training new members for the QC side.  

Moran graduated from Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles with a bachelor of science in biochemistry and performed environmental chemistry research under Sylvine Deprèle, PhD. In 2018, she gained stem cell experience through a course led by Loren Ornelas-Menendez and Lindsay Panther. To further pursue her biomedical interests, Moran began working as a research lab assistant in the Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai, where she remained to become a biomedical technician assistant.