Episode Details

 Today we'll continue our conversation about Project Implantation. 

In last week's episode, we were focused on how the model of the uterine lining was created and what it could do. This part of the conversation focuses more on what the blastoids, the embryo models and actual blastocysts (five day old embryos)  are doing with the model uterine lining. 

 Dr. Irene Zorzan is a postdoctoral Leverhulme Fellow at the Bainbridge Institute in Cambridge. 

She's got a PhD in molecular medicine and was focused on the factors that help guide cells in the blastocyst to specialize into the epiblast and trophoblast cell lineages and some of the development that follows. She also studied reprogramming fibroblasts into pluripotent stem cells. And is working on Dr.
Peter Rugg's team to better understand the conversation between the uterine lining and the blast assist to manage implantation and early placental development.

Here is a link to the paper. Scroll down in the paper to see the video we talk about in this episode: Modeling Human Embryo Implantation in Vitro: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)01232-2