This year’s Symposium, entitled: Decoding the Regenerative Dialogue Between Inflammatory and Stem Cell Pathways, explores a fundamental question in regenerative biology: how inflammation and the immune system work together with tissue stem cells to drive repair and recovery after injury. While inflammation is often viewed as harmful, growing evidence shows that immune signals can also play an essential and instructive role in guiding tissue-resident stem cells to rebuild damaged tissues and restore function.

The program brings together researchers who study how stem cells and immune cells communicate during regeneration, using powerful experimental and translational models. Our speakers draw mainly on musculoskeletal tissues, including muscle, bone, and cartilage, where these interactions can be studied in exceptional detail. The symposium is designed to engage the wider stem cell, immunology, and regeneration communities, and to foster cross-disciplinary discussion around shared mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities.

Highlighted Topics

• Inflammation as an instructional signal in tissue regeneration
• Immune-stem cell communication during injury and repair
• Stem cell activation, plasticity, and fate decisions in regenerative environments
• Aging, chronic inflammation, and epigenetic remodeling of stem cells
• Muscle, bone, and cartilage as model systems for regenerative inflammation
• Osteoimmune and stromal-immune interactions in degeneration and repair
• Injury-induced gene programs that coordinate inflammation and regeneration

Highlighted Topics Join us for the 20th Annual Wisconsin Stem Cell Symposium on April 15, 2026. Register now for $140 (students for $70.)