Abstract of the talk:
On the 7th day of development the human embryo implants in the maternal uterus to continue its normal development. This developmental period is associated with a global transcriptional and morphological reorganization of the embryo, but due to technical and ethical limitations, the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind remain poorly characterized. Using a novel culture system that allows human embryos to develop beyond day 7 in a dish, in combination with 3D stem cell cultures, we have uncovered the molecular cascade that regulates the first morphogenetic transformation of embryonic epiblast cells to form an epithelial tissue. We have further characterized the global gene expression changes of embryonic cells as they undergo morphogenesis. Currently, we are expanding our studies to characterize the early post-implantation development of aneuploid human embryos, which represent one of the major causes of early pregnancy loss.