Amander Clark, PhD 

Amander Clark, Ph.D., seeks to understand the science of reproductive and child health. Results from her research will aid in understanding and treating infertility, birth defects and germ cell tumors.

Dr. Clark’s research uses human embryonic stem cells as well as induced pluripotent stem cells – skin cells reprogrammed into embryonic-like stem cells – as basic models for her research program. She hopes to use the information obtained from stem cell differentiation to identify the critical molecular pathways required to generate the ovarian reserve in females and germ line stem cells in males.  The majority of this work is designed to improve our understanding of human fertility and to promote child health.  However a long-term therapeutic goal will be to create cell types that could be used to treat infertility after cancer therapy.

Dr Clark earned a Bachelor of Science degree with Honors and Ph.D in cell and developmental Biology from the University of Melbourne in Australia.  As a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco she was the first to show that human embryonic stem cells have the potential to differentiate into human germline cells. In 2006, Dr Clark was recruited to the Department of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, and was made Professor and Vice Chair in 2012.

A member of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, and Director of the human embryo and embryonic stem cell core laboratory, Dr. Clark is also affiliated with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Molecular Biology Institute and the Hinxton Group, an international consortium focused on stem cells, ethics and the law. She is Member Chair of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, a nonprofit organization that fosters the exchange of stem cell research information and a member of the Society for the Study of Reproduction.

Her work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, STOP Cancer, Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Fuller Foundation.