In remembrance of Professor Roger Pedersen

We are very sad to share the news of the passing of Professor Roger Pedersen, a pioneering stem cell researcher whose vision and hard work was instrumental in creating the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute.

Before coming to Cambridge in the early 2000s, Roger’s illustrious career had established him as a preeminent developmental biologist and stem cell researcher, motivated by his belief that this focus would lead to better human health, particularly with regards to infertility and birth defects. His research was some of the earliest work involving embryonic stem cells, and when at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, his group derived a new type of stem cell from mouse embryos (epiblast stem cells or EpiSCs), which share similarities with human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in regulation and differentiation. 

Educated at Stanford University and Yale University in the United States, Pedersen completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University before moving to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). During his time there, he eventually rose to the role of Professor in Residence in the Department of Radiology & Anatomy and Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences. 

However, within the early 2000s political climate in the United States, stem cell research funding was suddenly restricted by federal policy, so Pedersen moved to the University of Cambridge as Professor of Regenerative Medicine in the Department of Surgery as part of the MRC’s International Appointment Initiative. While in Cambridge, Pedersen was recruited by the Clinical School to catalyse stem cell research at the University through his funding with the MRC. Professor Austin Smith, with Wellcome Centre funding, partnered with Pedersen to found what would in 2012 become the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. 

After returning to the US in 2018, he maintained involvement with the University of Cambridge and acted as Chief Scientific Advisor to bit.bio (a Cambridge spin-out company and SCI-TIF member), as well as involvement with many other committees and boards in the UK and US. 

We are eternally grateful to Professor Roger Pedersen for his long life of influential stem cell research, as well as for his critical role and vision in establishing the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. 

We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and research community around the world.