Yacine Laabi

Biography

Yacine LAABI is a senior group leader at I-STEM and heads the Stem Cell Biotechnologies Division. Initially, responsible for the derivation, quality control and banking of various mutated hESC lines, he then implemented somatic cell reprogramming into hiPSCs using various methodological approaches. He is currently developing human pluripotent stem cell bioprocessing including fully automated cell amplification and differentiation using the CompacT SelecT robotic platform, controlled-rate cryopreservation and biobanking. Yacine LAABI has been working for more than 20 years in the stem cell field, both on mouse and human cells and on different stem cell types (haemopoietic, hepatic, embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells). He received his PhD in Molecular Haematology from the University of Paris 7 in 1994 under the supervision of Dr Andréas Tsapis during which he cloned and worked on the BCMA gene (B Cell Maturation Antigen), one of the three receptors of BAFF and APRIL and was consequently honoured by the 1993 Young Scientist Award of EUROCANCER in Paris. He subsequently spent 6 years as a Postdoctoral Scientist at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne in the Molecular Genetics of Cancer Division headed by Prof. Jerry Adams and Suzanne Cory. His research programme aimed at deciphering the molecular nature of a haemopoietic B-cell lineage reprogramming into neutrophils phenotype harboured by the Max41 mutant mouse model. Back to France, he first joined the laboratory of Dr Ana Cumano at the Pasteur Institute in Paris to explore the Delta-Notch pathway in the mouse lymphoid system before directing from 2002 to 2007 the R&D department of the AbCys S.A. biotech company in Paris where he developed a research programme, in collaboration with Dr Jacques Hatzfeld (CNRS) and Dr Anne Weber (Inserm), aiming at mastering the differentiation of hESCs into hepatic endoderm and subsequently into hepatic progenitors.

Research Interest

stem cell and regenerative medicine