Dr. Xuejun H Parsons received her PhD in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology from Cornell University and completed her PostDoc training as a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Research Fellow at University of California at San Diego. She was awarded NIH grants to conduct human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research and led the collaborative effort to develop the utility of hESC as a model system for a diverse range of biological and medical problems in one of the NIH exploratory centers for stem cell research. She is a stem cell research innovator and entrepreneur, a hESC research advocate, a patient advocate, with broad scientific training and extensive stem cell expertise. She is the first to develop the key breakthrough technologies for large-scale production of high quality clinical-grade hESC lines and their functional human neuronal and heart cell therapy derivatives for commercial and therapeutic uses, thus overcoming the major bottleneck in the regenerative medicine market and enabling therapeutic development, commercialization, and clinical practice of hESC tools and products. In regenerative medicine, hESC research holds huge promise to address the unmet medical need to repair, replace, or regenerate the damaged or lost tissue or organ for many incurable or hitherto untreatable chronic diseases that have been challenging to traditional medicine. Her original hESC research breakthroughs render neuronal/cardiac lineage-specific conversion directly from the pluripotent state of hESC by small molecule induction, which opens the door for human neural/cardiac tissue/organ regeneration/bio-fabrication and investigating molecular human embryonic development using powerful in vitro model systems. Her breakthrough medical innovations and advocacy have contributed to improving policy making for hESC research in the Federal Government.