The Babraham Distinguished Seminar Series is sponsored by the Babraham Institute and the Babraham Research Campus which is home to more than 50 biotech companies. The seminars are also advertised to the wider Cambridge community. The series will provide exciting science talks by distinguished scientists from across the world in many areas of biomedical interest.
Professor Ludovic Vallier; Berlin Institute of Health @Charite and Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics
Ludovic Vallier is Einstein Professor for Stem Cells in Regenerative Therapies at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) and Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics (MPIMG). He received his PhD from Ecole Normale Superieure of Lyon /University Claude Bernard in 2001 where he studied the function of cell cycle regulators in pluripotency. He then joined the group of Prof. Roger Pedersen at the University of Cambridge, Department of Surgery, where he uncovered the mechanisms by which TGFBETA signalling controls self-renewal and differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. He became an independent investigator in 2008 after receiving a MRC non clinical senior fellowship and was named Professor of Regenerative Medicine in 2015. He was the manager of the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells core facility between 2009-2022 and was co-deputy director of the Wellcome and MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute until 2022. His group based at the BIH Center for Regenerative Therapy (BCRT) and MPIMG takes advantage of human pluripotent stem cells and primary organoids to generate liver cells with a clinical interest for disease modelling and cell-based therapy. More precisely, they investigate the molecular mechanisms controlling cell fate decisions during human liver development and exploit the resulting knowledge to produce hepatocytes and cholangiocytes. The resulting cells are currently used to study metabolic disorders and to develop regenerative medicine applications against liver diseases.
End-stage liver disease is one of the most common cause of mortality in modern countries and can only be treated by liver transplantation. However only a limited number of patients can benefit from this therapy due to the lack of organ donors and the side effects of immunosuppressive treatment. Therefore, the development of new therapeutics against liver diseases is urgently needed. Our team aims to address this global health care challenge by studying the molecular mechanisms controlling hepatic development in human and more specifically the production of cholangiocytes and hepatocytes which represent the 2 main functional cell types of the liver. We are then using this basic knowledge to understand disease mechanisms and to develop cell-based therapies applications. More precisely, we use human pluripotent stem cells and primary liver organoids to investigate the mechanisms driving progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and to develop new regenerative therapies. The presentation will describe our latest progress in understanding human liver development and how the uncovered interplays relate to disease mechanisms.
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