Smita Sudheer

Biography

Smita Sudheer’s research has been on addressing some of the basic questions on mammalian preimplantation development and cell fate decisions of human and mouse Pluripotent Stem Cells. Owing to her training and experience in both molecular biology and Bioinformatics, her research has involved a combination of both. Dr. Smita Sudheer worked as a postdoctoral scientist with Prof. Bernhard Herrmann at the Department of Developmental Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany (2010-2016). Her Postdoctoral research involved differentiation of mouse Pluripotent Stem Cells towards presomitic mesoderm (PSM), the progenitors of somites that give rise to axial skeleton and skeletal muscles, tendons, dorsal dermis, and adipose tissue. This work showed that the activation of WNT signalling in combination with FGF ligand induces embryo-like PSM at high efficiency and by varying the FGF ligand concentration, the state of PSM cells formed can be altered (Sudheer et al., Stem Cells. 2016). During her Postdoctoral period, she has taken lectures for international Masters students of Molecular Medicine and Biology from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany and Freie Universität Berlin, Germany respectively. She has also guided and supervised a bachelor student of Biochemistry from Freie Universität Berlin for internship and later on for Thesis. She had pursued her doctoral work in Prof. James Adjaye’s Laboratory at the Department of Vertebrate Genomics, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany (2006-2010). Her PhD work was on human Pluripotent Stem Cells (hPSC) and preimplantation development, elucidating the crucial role of FGF pathway as a decision maker between the two lineages, mesoderm and syncytiotrophoblast (the epithelial covering of placenta, that establishes nutrient circulation between the embryo and mother during pregnancy) (Sudheer et al., Stem cells and dev. 2012) and investigation of genome-wide changes during mammalian preimplantation development (Sudheer and Kues et al., PNAS 2008, Sudheer and Adjaye, Brief Funct Genomic Proteomic 2007). Before her PhD, she had worked at Indian Institute of Science, on a project on the study of glioma (a common brain cancer) using genomic approaches. She obtained training in Bioinformatics via a Postgraduate course in Bioinformatics at the University of Cologne, Germany and an Advanced Diploma in Bioinformatics at Osmania University, Hyderabad

Research Interest

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) are self-renewing and pluripotent (can give rise to any cell type of the body). They also have the capacity to form germ cells (gametes: male or female reproductive cells) and extra-embryonic cells (placenta and yolk sac). These properties of PSCs make them a fabulous system to study development in a dish (in vitro). Our laboratory aims to understand how cell fate decisions are taken by PSCs either to maintain pluripotency or differentiate into a particular lineage during development and disease. We are particularly interested in understanding the events that specify human PSCs (hPSCs) towards the lineages of mesoderm (gives rise to embryonic tissues such as muscle, bone, cartilage, connective tissue, heart, blood cells, etc.) and trophoblast (gives rise to the extra-embryonic tissue, placenta that provides nutrients to the embryo during pregnancy). We are also interested in implementing these insights into human disease modelling and/or drug testing in vitro using patient-specific human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs).