In this episode of Behind the Breakthrough Dr. Gordon Keller talks about his staggering legacy of advancing the field of regenerative medicine, including his lab’s world-first discovery of the hemangioblast. The hemangioblast is the precursor cell that goes on to form blood vessels and other blood cells in the body. That 1997 discovery led to the next step in Dr. Keller's research – successfully ‘differentiating’ or coaxing precursor cells into becoming a specific cell type that could potentially replace or regrow damaged parts of the body. This seminal work laid the foundation for the research he oversees today at UHN’s McEwen Stem Cell Institute harnessing stem cells to repair damaged organs such as the heart, liver and pancreas.