Meet the SCB Staff: Dawn Henke, PhD, Senior Technical Program Manager
Dawn Henke, PhD, was one of SCB’s first full-time staff members, joining as a technical program manager in late December 2017. Dawn has extensive experience in the advanced biological sciences and has played an active role in the regenerative medicine community throughout her career.
Prior to joining SCB, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, National Eye Institute performing stem cell research focused on developing retinal organoids from stem cells for testing and therapeutic purposes. She holds a PhD in Genetics and Genomic Sciences from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
As Senior Technical Program Manager, Dawn is the supervisor of the program manager team and acts as a liaison between the program managers and the executive director. She works alongside Katie Zander, PhD and Kelly Sauerwein, PhD, to:
Manage SCB’s projects
Coordinate with members of the SCB community
Serve as community liaison to ISO/TC 276 and ISO 150
Facilitate working groups dedicated to advancing specific standards, primarily focusing on cell therapy
We sat down with Dawn to learn more about her experience and her perspective on SCB’s role in the regenerative medicine community.
Q: How does your prior experience connect with your role at SCB?
My background in biomedical sciences—particularly my postdoctoral work in stem cell research—ties closely into the regenerative medicine space. I got a firsthand view into how variable and difficult it can be to translate academic research into clinical therapies and saw the extreme need for standards to help smooth this process.
Q: Why did you decide to join SCB?
After working in a research lab and seeing some of the big-picture needs that standards could help address, I was excited about the potential to play a role related to standards on a larger scale though SCB’s work. I saw it as a chance to make a bigger impact and help move the whole regenerative medicine field forward.
Q: What has been the most rewarding thing about your work with SCB so far?
The best experience for me has been seeing people come together from all different stakeholder groups and companies to work toward a common goal. People are willing to cooperate and share information because of how important it is to get therapies to patients. It’s great to see this in practice.
Q: From your perspective, what value does SCB bring to the regenerative medicine community?
We help make sure that safe and effective therapies can get to patients faster. Standards enable product developers to save time and money on repeated processes, as well as better measure product quality and safety. By supporting the advancement of standards, we can help grow the field at an accelerated rate, while also making sure patients receive the safest treatments possible.