FRIDAY LECTURES : Pluripotent Stem Cell States and Lineage Competence : Austin Smith, Friday 6 november, 15h, auditorium IGBMC
IGBMC is pleased to welcome Austin Smith, Director of the Living Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, Professor at the Medical Research Council and Fellow of the Royal Society, in the United Kingdom.
Since studying biochemistry at Oxford, Austin Smith has focused on pluripotency, the ability of cells to give rise to all cell types in the body. Present for a very brief period during embryonic development, this property lies at the heart of his research.
By controlling their environment, pluripotent stem cells can be maintained in the laboratory in different states, corresponding to distinct stages of embryonic development. From the earliest, known as the “naïve” state, to a more advanced state, known as “primed”, these cells display different characteristics and differentiation capacities.
In conventional human stem cells, these differences are reflected in varying behaviours from one cell line to another: some differentiate more readily than others into a given cell type. Epigenetic alterations acquired during culture or reprogramming may partly explain these variations.
Austin Smith is exploring a promising approach: returning these cells to the naïve state, sometimes described as the “ground state”, could help erase some of these alterations and improve their ability to differentiate.
His lecture, entitled “Pluripotent Stem Cell States and Lineage Competence”, will provide an opportunity to discover his research into the different states of pluripotency and their influence on the differentiation capacities of stem cells.
The lecture is organised and chaired by Sophie Jarriault