DrVeronique Azuara
Associate Professor in Stem Cell Biology
Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction - Faculty of Medicine
- Associate Professor in Stem Cell BiologyDepartment of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction - Faculty of Medicine
- 020 7594 1915 (Work)
- 1009, Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Hammersmith Campus, United Kingdom
RESEARCH
The goal of our research group is to decode and model, using in vivo and stem-cell based embryo systems, the molecular mechanisms and rules that govern the development of the early embryo with impact on all subsequent foetal growth and postnatal health. If we could elucidate how these fundamental processes worked, this knowledge could inform our understanding and treatment of developmental disorders and infertility. This could also improve our use of stem cells in sciences and medicine.
In the context of the early mammalian embryo, the task implies for example unravelling how cell heterogeneity arises from virtually identical blastomeres of the cleavage-stage embryo, leading to blastocyst lineage segregation, how pluripotency – i.e., the ability of a cell to form an adult organism - is achieved and safeguarded while promoting the formation of essential extra-embryonic structures for survival and patterning, and how the pluripotent embryonic tissue (or epiblast) itself undergoes drastic biochemical and cellular transformations as the embryo implants in preparation for differentiation and foetal growth.
At the blastocyst stage, the epiblast forms an amorphous ball of cells that gets reorganized during peri-implantation times into a polarized epithelium with a central (pro-amniotic) cavity. These fundamental cellular events coincide with burst of cell proliferation and reorganization of chromatin, transcriptional, metabolic, and signalling states as the transiently established “naïve” pluripotency is dismantled, transforming into a more developmentally advanced “primed” state for differentiation post-implantation. Here, we want to understand how converging regulatory pathways support the developmental progression of the embryo from pre- to post-implantation stages, what are the mechanisms that synchronise all remodelling events into a balanced ontogenetic flow, and how these fundamental processes are influenced by the maternal environment – e.g., reproductive tract fluids and signals that surround the embryo at the critical time of implantation.
In the context of the early mammalian embryo, the task implies for example unravelling how cell heterogeneity arises from virtually identical blastomeres of the cleavage-stage embryo, leading to blastocyst lineage segregation, how pluripotency – i.e., the ability of a cell to form an adult organism - is achieved and safeguarded while promoting the formation of essential extra-embryonic structures for survival and patterning, and how the pluripotent embryonic tissue (or epiblast) itself undergoes drastic biochemical and cellular transformations as the embryo implants in preparation for differentiation and foetal growth.
At the blastocyst stage, the epiblast forms an amorphous ball of cells that gets reorganized during peri-implantation times into a polarized epithelium with a central (pro-amniotic) cavity. These fundamental cellular events coincide with burst of cell proliferation and reorganization of chromatin, transcriptional, metabolic, and signalling states as the transiently established “naïve” pluripotency is dismantled, transforming into a more developmentally advanced “primed” state for differentiation post-implantation. Here, we want to understand how converging regulatory pathways support the developmental progression of the embryo from pre- to post-implantation stages, what are the mechanisms that synchronise all remodelling events into a balanced ontogenetic flow, and how these fundamental processes are influenced by the maternal environment – e.g., reproductive tract fluids and signals that surround the embryo at the critical time of implantation.