Dr Ioakeim Ampartzidis

Dr Ioakeim Ampartzidis studies how cellular interactions drive symmetry breaking and body axis formation during early mammalian development. His research is based at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, where he integrates interdisciplinary approaches spanning stem cell biology, developmental biology, and bioengineering. By combining human pluripotent stem cell models with microfluidic technologies, his work investigates how local cell behaviours are coordinated to generate organised tissue structures. This approach enables the study of early developmental processes that are otherwise inaccessible in humans, linking molecular regulation to tissue-scale organisation.
Dr Ampartzidis graduated as valedictorian in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the Democritus University of Thrace (2019), before completing an MPhil in Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge (2020), where he joined the Boroviak lab and the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research. There, he developed an interest in stem cell biology and explored early embryonic development using non-human primate stem cells. During his PhD at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (2020–2023), Dr Ampartzidis investigated neural development in the Galea and de Coppi labs, focusing on cell behaviour and extracellular cues using human stem cell models of spina bifida. He then undertook postdoctoral research in the Elvassore lab (University of Padova), integrating 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering approaches to model early cardiac development. In 2025, Dr Ampartzidis returned to Cambridge to join the Hollfelder lab, where he is leveraging microfluidics and engineered stem cell systems to study self-organisation during early embryogenesis and body axis formation.