Amy Wagers is a professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School, an investigator in islet cell and regenerative biology at the Joslin Diabetes Center, and principal faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. She started her education at Johns Hopkins University and received her B.A. in Biological Sciences and her PhD in Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis from Northwestern University in 1999, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Irving Weissman at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Wagers researches intrinsic and extrinsic regulators of stem cell function and how stem cells impact tissue regeneration and aging. She has demonstrated that transplantation of satellite cells into injured, diseased, or aged muscle can lead to cell engraftment, in some cases restoring muscle function. She has also identified novel regulators (such as EGR1) of stem cell trafficking and stem cell number in bone marrow and during immune responses, and identified blood-borne proteins, such as GDF11, that in mice can reverse some of the pathological changes that occur in aging tissues.
Her prestigious national honors and awards include the White House’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the Office
of Science and Technology (the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stage of their independent research careers), the NIH New Innovator Award, the Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Smith Family New Investigator Award, the W.M. Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholar Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists, and an Early Career Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She has authored more than 50 publications in immunology and stem cell biology and is invited to speak to scientific assemblies both nationally and internationally as a leading stem-cell biologist.