Early embryos kept in check or how embryos coordinate the exit from pluripotency?

Pluripotent state transitions coordinate morphogenesis in mouse and human embryos. Shahbazi M et al., 2017 Nature

Pluripotency regulates mouse and human embryonic morphogenesis: cells in an unrestricted naive pluripotent state (Nanog+, yellow) fail to undergo proper morphogenesis and do not form the amniotic cavity (left). Loss of naive pluripotency (cells lacking Nanog expression) directs morphogenesis and amniotic cavity formation (right)..

The next generation of artificial embryos:  Embryo-like structures built from stem cells  capable of ‘gastrulation’, a key life event

Self-assembly of embryonic and two extra-embryonic stem cell types into gastrulating embryo-like structures. Sozen B et al., 2018. Nature Cell Biology

The remarkable ability of three stem cell types to self-assemble in vitro into gastrulating embryo-like structures (middle) undertaking spatio-temporal events of the gastrulating mammalian embryo (right).

How are experimental models shaping our understanding of early mammalian developement?

Deconstructing and reconstructing the mouse and human early embryo. Shahbazi, M and Zernicka-Goetz, M. 2018. Nature Cell Biology

A timely review on the post-implantation mammalian embryo and how recent technologies have helped to investigate form and function during development. We explore the complex processes of embryogenesis and the multiple regulatory levels involved.

In The Press:

A Perspective Series Investigating The Future of Fertility

An original series on the Future of Fertility by OZY looks at where science is headed — and who’s leading the charge.

Celebrating women in science: a new profile of the work in our lab examines our attempts to solve the mysteries of the embryo.  Written by science journalist, Marissa Fessenden. Click here to view the story.

Illustration by Zoe Van Dijk.

The Dance of Life:

Symmetry, Cells and How we Become Human

A new book by Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and Roger Highfield coming out in July 2019. A moving celebration of the balletic beauty of life’s beginnings.

The Dance of Life will take you inside the incredible world of life just as it begins and reveals the wonder of the earliest and most profound moments in how we become human. Through Magda’s trailblazing research as a professor at Cambridge you’ll learn how early life starts to take shape and discover the true beauty of life’s beginnings.

Further details here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1116560/the-dance-of-life/9780753552926.html

REVIEW: Self-organization of stem cells into embryos: A window on early mammalian development

Organoids and development:  A new review published in Science by Marta Shahbazi, Eric Siggia, and  Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz.

Here, we review the principles of self-organization and how they set cells in motion to create an embryo.  For full access, click on links below:

Abstract: http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/

Reprint: http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/

Full text: http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/

Stem Cell Derived Blastocyst Offers a New Way to Study Early Development

Deconstructing and reconstructing the mouse early embryo.

Sozen et al., 2019; Developmental cell

The way the the blastocyst organize itself has profound implications for  pregnancy. Our new study shows morphogenetic and transcriptome profiling analyses to reveal how synthetic blastocysts form distinct embryonic-abembryonic axes and primitive endoderm differentiation and can initiate the transition from the pre- to post-implantation egg cylinder morphology in vitro. These studies will help us to better understand the very beginnings of life.