Reimagining Embryogenesis
What makes us human? And how are humans made? These are two of the fundamental questions that drive research at the Alev Lab. We aim to answer them through the lens of synthetic developmental biology. By reconstituting key developmental events in vitro using pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), we are developing bottom-up model systems that simulate human embryogenesis and organogenesis. This approach has already led to major advances in our lab, including the successful recapitulation of the human segmentation clock (Matsuda, Yamanaka et al., Nature, 2020; Matsuda et al., Science, 2020) and the in vitro reconstruction of human somitogenesis (Yamanaka, Hamidi et al., Nature, 2023). Building on this foundation, we now seek to advance current models through a multidisciplinary approach that integrates synthetic biology, developmental engineering, and omics-based analysis. With these models, we aim to gain deeper insight into the fundamental principles that underlie early human development. Ultimately, we hope our work may help answer key questions in developmental biology, from what makes human development distinct to how disruptions during the earliest stages can lead to disease.
Publications
- Recapitulating the human segmentation clock with pluripotent stem cells. Matsuda M, Yamanaka Y, Uemura M, Osawa M, Saito MK, Nagahashi A, Nishio M, Guo L, Ikegawa S, Sakurai S, Kihara S, Maurissen TL, Nakamura M, Matsumoto T, Yoshitomi H, Ikeya M, Kawakami N, Yamamoto T, Woltjen K, Ebisuya M, Toguchida J, Alev C. Nature. 2020 Apr;580(7801):124-129.Nature
- Reconstituting human somitogenesis in vitro. Yamanaka Y, Hamidi S, Yoshioka-Kobayashi K, Munira S, Sunadome K, Zhang Y, Kurokawa Y, Ericsson R, Mieda A, Thompson JL, Kerwin J, Lisgo S, Yamamoto T, Moris N, Martinez-Arias A, Tsujimura T, Alev C. Nature. 2023 Feb;614(7948):509-520.Nature
- Criteria for the standardization of stem-cell-based embryo models. Martinez Arias A, Rivron N, Moris N, Tam P, Alev C, Fu J, Hadjantonakis AK, Hanna JH, Minchiotti G, Pourquie O, Sheng G, Solnica Krezel L, Veenvliet JV, Warmflash A. Nat Cell Biol. 2024 Oct;26(10):1625-1628.Nature Cell Biology
News
Join us
At the Alev Lab, we thrive on asking tough questions, tackling ambitious challenges, and finding innovative solutions together. We are actively looking for motivated students and researchers interested in stem cell and developmental biology, genomics, and synthetic biology to join the lab. We also welcome colleagues with background and skill sets in engineering, bioinformatics, and mathematics who are interested in applying their expertise to stem cell-based models.
We are particularly interested in:
-Developmental biologists and stem cell researchers motivated to contribute to our interdisciplinary research and share our passion for stem cell-based models of early development and organogenesis
- Bioengineers, experts in microfluidics or micropattern interested in designing e.g. advanced platforms to control stem cell differentiation and morphogenesis
-Experts in image acquisition and analysis; and computational biologist interested in e.g. building advanced pipelines for quantitative image-based analysis and prediction
-Machine learning and AI specialists , to develop e.g. tools for processing and analyzing large-scale datasets, including imaging and multi-omics data integration
-Experts in OMICs technologies (e.g., single-cell transcriptomics, epigenomics, and bioinformatics) aiming to analyze and integrate high-dimensional datasets to uncover novel biological principles
We are delighted to providing a supportive and dynamic research environment for motivated undergraduated and graduated students, and post graduated researchers. If you want to get involved in research on complex biological systems in a supportive and dynamic environment, we'd love to hear from you.
