San Antonio’s first World Stem Cell Summit a big success, says conference founder

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Courtesy of World Stem Cell Summit

World Stem Cell Summit founder Bernard Siegel said San Antonio gained invaluable international exposure as host of the 2014 global conference.

W. Scott Bailey

Reporter/Project Coordinator- San Antonio Business Journal

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Judging from the reactions of several parties responsible for helping bring the 2014 World Stem Cell Summit to San Antonio, the Alamo came out a big winner, gaining invaluable international exposure for an emerging regenerative medicine industry critical to the city's economic future.

Perhaps no one was more impressed with San Antonio's showing than Genetics Policy Institute Executive Director and World Stem Cell Summit founder Bernard Siegel.

"It's been great. The feedback from attendees has been uniformly positive," said Siegel, who brought the three-day summit to San Antonio this week for the first time in its 10-year history.

"The sessions have been well-attended and the enthusiasm has been over the top," Siegel told me on Friday when asked to grade San Antonio's performance. "This has been a great venue. The city really came through, and we are thrilled. San Antonio rated an A+."

Summit organizers were impressed with the support for sponsors and other participants. Siegel said the exhibition hall space for sponsor vendors sold out, as was the summit's awards dinner.

Dr. Steven Davis, co-founder of San Antonio-based StemBioSys Inc. and instrumental in helping convince Siegel to bring the World Stem Cell Summit to San Antonio, said the investment local stakeholders offered to ensure the event's success was a key investment that should pay big dividends long-term.

"It was worth every penny," he said.

Ed Davis, executive director of the San Antonio Economic Development Corp., who also played an important role in the city's hosting of the summit, offered a similar perspective.

"We really did shine the light on San Antonio in the regenerative medicine space, which is really robust," Siegel said. "The value of the conference is not the $1 million or $2 million injected into the local economy. It's the collaboration and economic development that comes from a meeting like this. We've worked for a year to tell the story of San Antonio."

W. Scott Bailey covers health care, tourism, sports business, economic development; he also plans and edits some special reports.