5月17日清华大学生物论坛 - Nicolas Rivron

时间：2022-05-17 20:00

主讲人：Nicolas Rivron, Ph.D.

Group leader of the Laboratory of Synthetic Development, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA)

主题：Blastoids: Shaping the mammalian embryo for implantation.

会议方式：Zoom (Meeting ID: 841 2971 1354, Passcode: 088814)

邀请人：周帆

Abstract:

The blastocyst is the early mammalian organism before implantation. We discovered how to promote the self-organization of stem cells into structures remarkably resembling the mouse and the human blastocyst, which we called blastoid (Nature 2018, Nature 2021). Blastoids are morphologically and transcriptionally similar to the blastocyst and contain analogs of all three cell types that further develop into the complete organism (embryonic and extra-embryonic tissues). Because blastoids model the pre-implantation stage, they can be introduced into the uterus (mouse model) or combined with uterine cells in vitro (human model) to recapitulate aspects of the hidden processes of implantation. Contrary to blastocysts, blastoids come in large numbers and facilitate the more systematic modulation and analysis of the impact of cell numbers, states, and communication mechanisms on development. As such, they represent both a technical and ethical alternative to the use of embryos for research. Using this approach, we investigate the multicellular interaction rules underlying blastocyst development and implantation in order to tackle global health problems of fertility decline, family planning, and the developmental origin of health and diseases.

Biography:

Nicolas Rivron is a developmental biologist and tissue engineer. He leads the laboratory for synthetic development at the Institute for Molecular Biotechnologies, from the Austrian Academy of Science (Vienna, Austria). His laboratory created a model of the pre-implantation embryo formed through the self-organization of stem cells, which they called blastoid. This embryo model implants in utero, when formed with mouse stem cells, and recapitulates aspects of implantation into in vitro cultured uterine cells, when formed with human stem cells. His laboratory investigates the basic principles of self-organization and is interested in contributing to solving global health problems related to fertility decline, family planning, and the developmental origin of health and diseases.