Dr Luke Harland

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Wolfson College
  • Principal Investigator, Wellcome Early Career Award
Dr Luke Harland

About

Luke completed a BSc at the University of Western Ontario and during his undergraduate undertook summer research projects in Professor Gordon Keller’s laboratory at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute in Toronto. Subsequently, he completed a Wellcome-funded DPhil at the University of Oxford with Professor Elizabeth Robertson, where he identified a key regulator of early blood development. After a year as a Vertex Fellow at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, he joined Professor Bertie Göttgens’ laboratory at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. In 2023, Luke started a Wellcome Early-Career Award and in 2026 joined the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research to establish his research group.

Research

My research seeks to understand how cells acquire specialised identities and assemble into functional tissues during embryogenesis. I combine embryology, single-cell and spatial genomics, genetic engineering, and mouse and human stem cell models to investigate how developmental history shapes cell identity and function, and how this influences tissue assembly.

Current research focuses on extraembryonic hematovascular development, with particular emphasis on the formation of the fetal vasculature of the placenta. A central goal is to understand how developmental origin shapes endothelial cell identity, behaviour, and interactions with surrounding tissues during extraembryonic morphogenesis. Ultimately, this research aims to uncover fundamental principles of mammalian development and establish new experimental platforms for modelling placental development and disease.

Publications

Selected publications

Eomes directs the formation of spatially and functionally diverse extra-embryonic haematovascular tissues 20 October 2025 Developmental Cell B Theeuwes*, LTG Harland*†, A Bisia, I Costello, M-L Ton, T Lohoff, SJ Clark, R Argelaguet, NK Wilson, W Reik, E Bikoff, EJ Robertson†, B Gottgens† A Spatiotemporal Atlas of Mouse Gastrulation and Early Organogenesis to Explore Axial Patterning and Project In Vitro Models onto In Vivo Space 26 August 2025 Cell Reports LTG Harland†, T Lohoff, N Koulena, N Pierson, C Pape, F Ameen, J Griffiths, B Theeuwes, NK Wilson, W Reik, J Nichols, L Cai, JC Marioni, B Gottgens†, S Ghazanfar† Tracking Early Mammalian Organogenesis – Prediction and Validation of Differentiation Trajectories at Whole Organism Scale 31 January 2024 Development I Imaz-Rosshandler*, C Roder*, C Guibentif*, LTG Harland*, M-L Ton, P Dhapola, D Keitley, R Argelaguet, FJ Calero-Nieto, J Nichols, JC Marioni†, MFTR de Bruijn†, B Gottgens† The T-box transcription factor Eomesodermin governs haemogenic competence of yolk sac mesodermal progenitors 8 January 2021 Nature Cell Biology LTG Harland, C Simon, AD Senft, I Costello, L Greder, I Imaz-Rosshandler, B Gottgens, J Marioni, EK Bikoff, C Porcher, MFTR de Bruijn† and EJ Robertson†