Pluripotecy is the abilty to give rise to all differentiated cell types in the body. Pluripotent stem cells have been derived from mouse embryos and, more recently from other species, and caught the attention of the scientific community for two reasons: they can be expanded indefinitely in vitro and also differentiate into any cell type, making them the perfect tool for regenerative medicine; they also represent an intellectually fascinating cell type, given their lack of any developmental restriction.

We are interested in understanding the biology of PSCs, in particular by looking at the network of transcription factors and the signaling pathways feeding into it. To do so we combine molecular, cellular and computational biology.

Our aim is to understand how the pluripotent state is obtained and maintained. By comparing PSCs from different species we will also obtain insights into the evolutionary conservation of the mechanism controlling pluripotency.

 

PSCs represent also a valuable experimental tool, given the possibility to genetically modify them and their ability to differentiate in vitro into virtually any cell type. For thesereasons we use PSCs to study the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Specifically, we are modelling Huntington disease (HD) in PSCs with the aim to identify genes involved in the cellular toxicity caused by mutant Huntingtin, the protein responsible for HD. We will combine genome-wide genetic approaches and bioinformatics to identify and characterised genes involved in HD development and test them as potential therapeutic targets.