Dr Marta Shahbazi

  • Group leader, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Dr Marta Shahbazi

About

The Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research is deeply saddened by the death of Dr Marta Shahbazi, who died in the train collision near Urda, Spain, on 28 October 2026. She was travelling to receive an award from the Spanish Society for Developmental Biology in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the field.

Marta was a Loke CTR Member and a Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Her work on how the human embryo develops around the time of implantation, including extending human embryo culture beyond this stage and helping establish stem cell-based embryo models, was of great importance to our community and to all who study early pregnancy. She was also committed to public engagement and to the responsible governance of her field.

Marta was a generous colleague and a dedicated mentor to early career researchers, and her creativity and energy will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and colleagues across the Centre, especially the members of her lab and the LMB.

Research

Pluripotent stem cells have the unique capacity to generate all the cell types of the organism. They are found in the mammalian embryo at the time of implantation in the uterus. At this stage, they undergo changes in shape and identity to set the foundation of the body plan. The molecular determinants that control pluripotency in non-physiologic 2D cultures are becoming increasingly apparent. By contrast, very little is known about how pluripotent stem cell identity and fate are regulated by physical and molecular cues contributed by a tissue’s physiological 3D organisation. To address this question, my group employs novel methods to culture embryonic stem cells in 3D, and to grow mouse and human embryos in vitro beyond the implantation stage. These models allow us to dissect the molecular pathways that regulate cell fate specification, and gain an integrated mechanistic understanding of normal embryo development. This is a first fundamental step in identifying the causes of developmental failure, congenital abnormalities and infertility.