Dr Adam Bendall

I am interested in the epigenetic regulation of early human development. To do this, I employ human naïve and primed pluripotent stem cells as 2D models of human epiblast development and make use of stem-cell based embryo models named ‘blastoids’ to study human pre-implantation lineage specification into epiblast, hypoblast and trophectoderm and allows implantation dynamics to be studied in a 3D system in vitro.  

My research has specifically focused on the importance of Polycomb repressive complex (PRC) epigenetic enzymes, made up of PRC1 and PRC2 complexes, which shape the chromatin landscape of early human embryos and stem cells. Using CRISPR and chemical inhibition approaches, we have established a key role for a PRC1 subcomplex in human primed to naïve reprogramming, and the importance of PRC2 in safeguarding the human pre-implantation epiblast from trophoblast differentiation. 

My current project uses blastoids as a model to study the importance of Polycomb complexes in human blastoid lineage specification, to understand the key molecular events underpinning the earliest stages of human embryo development.