Dr. Rebekah Margaret Samsonraj is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering and an Adjunct Basic Science Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at UAMS. She completed her postdoctoral studies at Mayo Clinic, Rochester following which she was appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. She also served as Research Faculty at the Knight Campus, University of Oregon. Dr. Samsonraj’s research focuses on developing strategies for safe and efficacious mesenchymal stem cell therapies for a variety of clinical indications. She applies novel proteomics- and genomics-based approaches to understanding stem cell function, and develops novel epigenetic strategies to tune MSC fate. Dr. Samsonraj’s original work on establishing criteria for MSC potency allowed her to develop and patent a method for identifying sub-populations of stem cells with improved bone-forming ability, eventually leading to the identification of a novel genomic biomarker to assess MSC potency.