I am very happy to share that I've started my new position @upcite.bsky.social and opened my lab @institutimagine.bsky.social 🎉 In the lab we will study how differences in X-linked gene dosage between the sexes affect fetal growth and survival and contribute to sex differences later in life 👩‍🔬🧪🧬🧫

Friends Davor Solter and Azim Surani receiving the wonderful Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for Genomic Imprinting👏 👍 @Frankfurt Germany. With official talks from politicians using words like Education, Knowledge, Democracy 🙏 @maxplanck.de @gurdoninstitute.bsky.social

Two decades of induced pluripotent stem cell research: From discovery to diverse applications

I look forward to presenting the work of the lab at the 2nd Meeting on Early Embryogenesis and Epigenetics in Berlin next week. My talk will summarise ongoing work on early human development using naive pluripotent stem cells and embryo models. www.molgen.mpg.de/embryo2026

We are thrilled to share our new pre-print: “System-wide extraction of cis-regulatory rules from sequence-to-function models in human neural development”. S2F-deeplearning models can accurately encode enhancers, yet decoding these models into human-interpretable rules remains a major challenge.

Amazing and important work from Agenese Loda and colleagues! Happy to see this out. Congratulations to all co-authors.

We have just published a tribute to John Gurdon, reflecting on his scientific legacy and the profound influence he had on generations of developmental biologists. The piece is available open access in Nature Communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A stem-cell-based monkey embryo model that self-organizes into a comprehensive body plan could lead the way to more-sophisticated models of early human development go.nature.com/48yxsG6

We are excited to share our new preprint: SMARCA2/4-Dependent Chromatin Remodelling Establishes Gene Regulatory Programs in Early Human Embryos and Blastoids. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.01.691499v1

𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐭! 🎉 “𝐗𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐗-𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐅𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬” 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐑𝐱𝐢𝐯! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚀 Research Showcase 🔬 🧬 New research shows that cells can boost activity from the intact X-chromosome region when the other copy is deleted — ensuring balanced gene expression at RNA and protein levels. Read the study 👉 www.vscentrum.be/post/x-chrom...

📢 Speaker showcase for our 2nd Meeting #Embryo2026 🧬Vincent Pasque @pasquelab.bsky.social from @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social will speak about his work on modelling early human embryogenesis with naïve pluripotent stem cells. More information👇 www.molgen.mpg.de/embryo2026

📣 SAVE THE DATE Next X-inactivation meeting in Sapporo, Japan, 19-23 October 2026. Visit x-inactivation-meeting.org to join our mailing list. 🧬 speakers @dandergassen.bsky.social @marnieblewitt.bsky.social @heard65.bsky.social @crougeulle.bsky.social @sexchrlab.bsky.social @zhouqi1982.bsky.social

I am absolutely delighted to share the invited speakers for our upcoming @bsdb.bsky.social "Molecules to Morphogenesis" meeting! Registration and abstract submission is now open - join us! bsdb.org/meetings/ March 23-26, 2026 - UK

“I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing, this is quite ridiculous.” A privilege to have known John. He always listened to what one had to say with great intent. If you knew him, you know what I mean. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Adios and salut to a pioneer! Sir John Gurdon studied the requirements and barriers of #reprogramming. Highly relevant for us, with his PhD student Vincent Pasque he showed that macroH2A is part of the epigenetic barrier inhibiting reprogramming. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

It is with profound sadness that I have learned of the passing of my beloved PhD supervisor, John Gurdon. We have lost a true giant, an incredible mentor, kind and generous, whose contributions to science will inspire generations. He changed my life, and the lives of so many others.

I spoke with Benjamin Thompson on the Nature Podcast about a new study that uses stem cell-based embryo models – blastoids – to uncover how a recently evolved cis-regulatory element became essential for early human embryo gene regulatory programs. Tune in a share your thoughts below.

Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK. Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD

Excited to share our latest News & Views published in Nature! @nature.com rdcu.be/eI2NJ Sherif Khodeer and I discuss how stem cell-based embryo models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development.

Nieuw inzicht in hoe cellen genetisch evenwicht bewaren. nieuws.kuleuven.be/nl/2025/nieu...

How cells maintain genetic balance with remarkable precision. nieuws.kuleuven.be/en/content/2...

Excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications @natcomms.nature.com (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) We show how cells can sense when individual genes are lost and compensate by upregulating the remaining gene copy. With Ryan Allsop, Jeffrey Boeren, Beatrice Tan, Joost Gribnau and others.

📣 It is my pleasure to announce our recent review with Margherita on the current approaches, challenges, and perspectives in studying human maternal-fetal interface using in vitro models www.cell.com/cell-stem-ce... 🚀✨️

Exciting postdoc position to study X-chromosome inactivation using stem cell-based embryos models, advanced imaging and single-cell omics at the Pasque lab, University of Leuven – KU Leuven, Belgium. International team, amazing collaborators. Full details: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

We are hiring a Lab Technician! Join our lab at the University of Leuven - KU Leuven, working on stem cell biology and epigenetics. Perform key molecular/cell biology techniques and manage lab operations. Full/part-time contract. Apply by Sept 30! More info: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

Exciting Research Professorship Position in Stem Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Leuven. Amazing research ecosystem, great colleagues, high quality of life, tenure track. For those interested in joining us, please see below: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

It was fun reflecting on how my career path took me from a focus on cancer research to developmental biology, the urge to understand how development and tissue homeostasis work and how my time at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch contributed to this. Thank you, Katrin Bühler-Popowski, for the interview!

Collaborative science is just so much fun! From our brilliant collaboration with Liz Robertson from @dunnschool.bsky.social; embryology, single cell omics and computational biology deliver new insights into the intricacies of blood and endothelial development. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

1/10🧵 New preprint! 🚀 We built a resource of 20 clonal human naïve pluripotent stem cell lines from 10 blastocysts. Explore embryo-to-embryo and clone-to-clone variation in one place. 👉doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.02.657331

We are delighted to share our new preprint “X-chromosome upregulation operates on a gene-by-gene basis at RNA and protein levels”. biorxiv.org/content/earl...

⚠️ I am really excited to share the work of Anastasios Balaskas, an excellent PhD candidate in the lab, with the wider world. Tasos made a significant advance: generating a stem cell-based embryo model that contains both posterior and anterior neural tissues of the late-stage gastrulating embryo.

Join us in the #institutcurie exceptional environment to explore the mysteries of X chromosome regulation in early human development

I am delighted to congratulate Janet Rossant on receiving the LSO Lifetime Achievement Award! Janet’s work on early embryos has shaped the field and inspired so many of us. Here is a wonderful video about Janet and her recent award: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZa7...

You can follow our team on our new webpage: institut-curie.org/team/rougeulle

I’m incredibly proud to share the results of our lab’s first project, leading to the exciting discovery – Aging promotes reactivation of the Barr body at distal chromosome regions – now published in @nataging.nature.com! 🔗 tinyurl.com/3jkzzy7d

We are excited to host Dr. Maxim Greenberg and Dr. Courtney Hanna this week to kickoff the Leuven Epigenetics Club!

Excited to share that I have been recognized as a 2025 ISSCR Public Service Award Honoree! Read more about the award and my fellow honorees. www.isscr.org/isscr-news/i...

A transcriptional clock of the human pluripotency transition. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

In this Review, @eliananehme.bsky.social, @amiteshp.bsky.social, Isabelle Migeotte and @pasquelab.bsky.social give an overview of the embryonic origin and function of extra-embryonic mesoderm in vertebrates from in vivo studies. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Symposium on ‘Enhancer Sequences’ at beautiful @collegedefrance.bsky.social in Paris, by April 11th. Open and free, no registration. Come to relax listening to facts #TherapeuticEffects #VillageGauloix Final programme below. Tell your friends! 🙏🤘

Vinod's team's work could have saved my wife's life, and I hope this and others like it will make a huge difference with patients with seemingly untreatable deadly diseases. This needs to be able to continue. www.mskcc.org/news/can-mrn...

Fantastic study and collaboration led by stellar postdoc @ioansarr.bsky.social, it was a pleasure to host you in the lab (& thanks to @embo.org for the visiting fellowship)

Excited to share our recent review on extraembryonic mesoderm development, just published in Development! "Extra embryonic mesoderm during development and in in vitro models." journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Europe as “a haven” for US researcher - The EU’s research funding bodies are thinking of ways to welcome US scientists and European ex-patriots who might be looking for a more sympathetic place to work now that Donald Trump is in the White House #AcademicSky 🧪 sciencebusiness.net/internationa...

Inhibition of PRC2 enables self-renewal of blastoid-competent naive pluripotent stem cells from chimpanzee. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Genome-coverage single-cell histone modifications for embryo lineage tracing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy 600th birthday to the University of Leuven!

Exciting work from our neighbors. Congrats to all involved.

Today we celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Join us in recognising the crucial role women and girls play in science and promoting gender equality in scientific research and education. Below, we highlight some of the incredible women in our lab. #WomenInScience