BIH Lecture: "From understanding human pluripotency to disease modelling and cell-based therapy" by Ludovic Vallier

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BIH Lecture

End-stage liver disease is one of the most common cause of mortality in modern countries and can only be treated by liver transplantation. However only a limited number of patients can benefit from this therapy due to the lack of organ donors and the side effects of immunosuppressive treatment. Therefore, the development of new therapeutics against liver diseases is urgently needed. Our team aims to address this global health care challenge by studying the mechanisms controlling hepatic development and more specifically the production of cholangiocytes and hepatocytes which represent the 2 main functional cell types of the liver. We are then using this basic knowledge to produce and to expand these cells in vitro for disease modelling and cell-based therapies applications. More precisely, we use human pluripotent stem cells and primary liver organoids to investigate the mechanisms driving progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and to develop new regenerative therapies. The presentation will describe our latest progress in developing culture systems to study complex liver diseases in vitro and to develop cell-based therapy especially in the context of acute liver failure.

About the Speaker

Ludovic Vallier received his PhD from Ecole Normale Superieure of Lyon /University Claude Bernard in 2001 where he studied the function of cell cycle regulators in pluripotency. He then joined the group of Prof. Roger Pedersen at the University of Cambridge, Department of Surgery, where he uncovered the mechanisms by which TGFb signaling controls self-renewal and differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. He became an independent investigator in 2008 after receiving a MRC non clinical senior fellowship and was named Professor of Regenerative Medicine in 2015. He was the manager of the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells core facility between 2009-2022 and was co-deputy director of the Wellcome and MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute until 2022. He recently joined the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) as Einstein Professor for Stem Cells in Regenerative Therapies. His group based at BIH Center for Regenerative Therapy (BCRT) takes advantage of human pluripotent stem cells and primary organoids to generate liver cells with a clinical interest for disease modelling and cell-based therapy. More precisely, they investigate the molecular mechanisms controlling cell fate decisions during human liver development and exploit the resulting knowledge to produce hepatocytes and cholangiocytes. The resulting cells are currently used to study metabolic disorders and to develop regenerative medicine applications against liver diseases.

Registration

The lecture will be held online. To participate in the lecture, please register here.
The registration will be open until maximal participant capacity is reached.