News

Roser Vento-Tormo receives Chan Zuckerberg Initiative support for COVID-19 study

11 May 2020

Roser, Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Member of the Loke CTR, will use single-cell technologies to understand human immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the progression of the disease. Joint project leader with Esteban Ballestar from the Josep Carreras Institute, Roser and her collaborators will...

Igf2 deletion alters mouse placenta endocrine capacity in a sexually-dimorphic manner, just published in Journal of Endocrinology

11 May 2020

Igf2 deletion alters mouse placenta endocrine capacity in a sexually-dimorphic manner, just published in Journal of Endocrinology Paper by Bethany R L Aykroyd 1 , Simon J Tunster 2 and Amanda N Sferruzzi-Perri 3 . You can read it in full here

Basement membrane remodelling regulates development, just published in Nature

7 May 2020

New study by Zernicka-Goetz lab published on Nature on the mechanism of membrane perforation during the development of the mouse embryo During development the mouse embryo implants in the mother’s uterus and undergoes a dramatic transformation. The resulting post-implantation embryo has an elongated morphology and is thus...

Fetal inheritance of chromosomally integrated human herpesvirus 6 predisposes the mother to pre-eclampsia, just published in Nature Microbiology

7 May 2020

Fetal inheritance of chromosomally integrated human herpesvirus 6 predisposes the mother to pre-eclampsia. Gaccioli F, Lager S, de Goffau MC, Sovio U, Dopierala J, Gong S, Cook E, Sharkey A, Moffett A, Lee WK, Delles C, Venturini C, Breuer J, Parkhill J, Peacock SJ, Charnock-Jones DS, Smith GCS. Nat Microbiol. 2020 May 4...

Placental imprinting: Emerging mechanisms and functions, just published in PLOS Genetics

24 April 2020

As the maternal–foetal interface, the placenta is essential for the establishment and progression of healthy pregnancy, regulating both foetal growth and maternal adaptation to pregnancy. The evolution and functional importance of genomic imprinting are inextricably linked to mammalian placentation. Recent technological...

Double-label immunohistochemistry to assess labyrinth structure of the mouse placenta with stereology

23 April 2020

The study was published by the Sferruzzi-Perri lab on the journal Placenta Summary: for many years the assessment of the mouse labyrinth zone has been performed using Ultrathin Resin Toluidine Blue sections, a technique that is difficult to perform as it requires specific tools and reagents. Because of it, many labs have...

Professor Wolf Reik receives an ERC Advanced Grant to study crucial developmental process

17 April 2020

New funding awarded to Professor Wolf Reik, Head of the Epigenetics research programme at the Babraham Institute and a member of the Loke CTR and the SRI's Steering Committee, will support research into one of the earliest and most important processes in early development. Professor Reik will receive funding through a...

Paper on parental pathogen exposure and how it affects offspring just published in Nature Communications

9 April 2020

Nick Burton has just published a new studio on Nature Communications about how the response in parents to environmental stress, such as infections, can prime their offspring to better react to the same type of stress. A parent’s exposure to environmental stresses, including pathogen infections, have been reported to prime...

John Robinson, Professor Emeritus of Physiology and Cell Biology, Ohio State University, passes away

7 April 2020

We are profoundly saddened by news of the death of John Robinson of Ohio State University. John was a man of immense integrity and renowned for his meticulous approach to science, in particular the proteomics of placental cell membranes. He, and his dry sense of humour, will be greatly missed.

Innovative 3-D scaffold project just published in Interface Focus

30 March 2020

Yassen Abbas, Loke CTR Research Associate, publishes the research article "Generation of a three-dimensional collagen scaffold-based model of the human endometrium" in Interface Focus Click here to read the full research article