In vitro gametogenesis

The main goal of my scientific career is the reliable, safe, and inexpensive production of human eggs and sperm in cell culture. This would solve nearly all infertility, and also enable important advances in the study of developmental biology. Working towards this goal, I have developed methods for producing ovarian cell types, such as granulosa cells and oogonia, from human induced pluripotent stem cells. (See the Publications section for more detailed information.)

Regulation of meiosis

Meiosis is the central process of sexual reproduction, and is a key step for gamete formation. Developing a system for inducing meiosis in mammalian cells on demand would benefit in vitro gametogenesis and might also allow parallelizing gene editing by conducting "genetic crosses" in vitro. I am researching the regulation of meiosis in order to achieve this goal.

Whole genome sequencing for iPSC quality control

I regularly generate edited stem cell lines as part of my research. Current methods for quality control (based on karyotyping and targeted Sanger sequencing) are laborious, expensive, and may miss some abnormalities. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) offers a better alternative. Working with my undergrad mentee Valerio Pepe, I am developing SeqVerify, a computational pipeline to take WGS data and perform various quality control checks.

Other interests

T-box riboswitches, ribozymes, gene regulatory networks, epigenetics, organic chemistry, pandemic prevention . . . the list goes on and on.