Infertility is a disease that affects around 1 in 8 couples of reproductive age in the United States (CDC). One of the major treatments for infertility involves in vitro fertilization (IVF), with ~2% of children born today using this technology. Despite the number of couples embarking on IVF, around 60-70% of IVF cycles fail due to problems with embryo development. Even for normal pregnancies, it is estimated that up to 70% of pregnancy result in miscarriage in early post-implantation stages. About half of early pregnancy loss cases are due to embryo aneuploidy; little is known about how those arise and the pathophysiological processes in the remaining cases. To study these processes, we use human pluripotent stem cell-derived embryo models that resemble aspects of normal development and dissect them mechanistically to better understand early human embryo development, the mechanistic events associated with embryo implantation and early lineage specification.

Current directions in the lab:

• Can we build a gene-regulatory map of early human development
• Can we understand X-chromosome regulation in early human development
• Can we explore differences in female and male development?