Conference Speakers

Dr. Diana Farmer is Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Pearl Stamps Stewart Endowed Chair, Chairperson of the Department of Surgery at the University of California, Davis and Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Surgical Bioengineering. She is also past Surgeon-in-Chief of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and UC Davis Children’s Hospital. She completed her undergraduate studies in Marine Sciences at Wellesley College and received her MD from the University of Washington in Seattle where she subsequently did her internship. Her general surgery residency training was completed at the University of California, San Francisco, and her Pediatric Surgical training was completed at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan before returning to UCSF as a faculty member in 1998 until being recruited as Chair of Department of Surgery at UC Davis in 2011. Her research into cellular therapy for in utero spinal cord injury was jump started with work at UCSF in the late 80’s as part of the extramural branch of the NCI study on cellular therapy with Il-2 LAK cells for metastatic melanoma and honed with a year working for Dupont- Merck as Associate Medical director of clinical trials in cancer and Sr. Scientist at the Glenolden Laboratory.
The world’s first female fetal surgeon, Dr. Farmer was the originator and a PI on the MOMS trial, the Management of Myelomeningocele study, that should that fetal surgery was superior to post-natal surgery for spina bifida, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and named “Clinical Trial of the Year “in 2011. She is currently the principal investigator of an investigated initiated IND Phase 1/2a study of engineered placental derived mesenchymal stromal cells for in utero repair of Myelomeningocele – the CuRe Trial. She was honored at UCSF as a recipient of the Outstanding Women Faculty Chancellor’s Recognition Award and the Department of Surgery’s Excellence in Teaching Award and the Holly Smith Award. Her career also includes being on faculty at the National University of Singapore as a Luce Scholar.
In 2010, Dr. Farmer was inducted as a fellow into the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCSE), becoming only the second US female surgeon to be bestowed this prestigious honor. The following year, she was also elected a Member of the National Academy of Medicine.[6]
Upon joining the faculty of University of California, Davis, Farmer became the Pearl Stamps Stewart Professor of Surgery, chair of the Department of Surgery and surgeon-in-chief of UC Davis Children’s Hospital. She is also Chief of Pediatric Surgery for Shriners Children’s Northern California. In February 2019, she was elected to the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons.[7] While serving in these roles, Farmer continued her research into curing spina bifida. In 2019, Farmer and Aijun Wang identified exosomes and galectin 1 as key to protecting neurons and ultimately reducing the lower-limb paralysis associated with the birth defect.[8] Due to her research, Farmer won a 2020 U21 Award for advancing global perspectives in her field.[9] She was later awarded a grant to co-launch the world’s first human clinical trial using stem cells to treat spina bifida with Aijun Wang.[10] The following year, Farmer became Harrington Fellow for work in cellular therapy for spial cord injury and the third woman named President of the American Surgical Association.[11]