Fiona Watt
King’s College London
Seminar series of the Institute for Molecular, Cell & Systems Biology
Friday 24th January
More about Fiona’s lab: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/research/divisions/gmm/departments/stemcells/wattfiona
Biography:
Fiona Watt is an internationally recognised scientist for her work on stem cells in healthy and diseased skin. She obtained her first degree from the University of Cambridge and her DPhil, in cell biology, from the University of Oxford. Following postdoctoral training at MIT, she established her first research group at the Kennedy Institute for Rheumatology and then spent 20 years at the CRUK London Research Institute (now part of the Francis Crick Institute). She had a leading role in establishing the CRUK Cambridge Research Institute and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research. In 2012, she moved to King's College London to found the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine.
Fiona Watt is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her awards include the American Society for Cell Biology Women in Cell Biology Senior Award, Presidency of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, the Hunterian Society Medal and the FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award. In 2016, she was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. In April 2018, she was appointed Executive Chair of the Medical Research Council, as it becomes a constituent part of UK Research and Innovation.
Fiona Watt is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her awards include the American Society for Cell Biology Women in Cell Biology Senior Award, Presidency of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, the Hunterian Society Medal and the FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award. In 2016, she was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. In April 2018, she was appointed Executive Chair of the Medical Research Council, as it becomes a constituent part of UK Research and Innovation.
Papers mentioned in the talk:
Mobasseri SA, Zijl S, Salameti V, Walko G, Stannard A, Garcia-Manyes S, Watt FM. Patterning of human epidermal stem cells on undulating elastomer substrates reflects differences in cell stiffness. Acta Biomater. 2019 Mar 15;87:256-264. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2019.01.063. Epub 2019 Jan 30. PubMed PMID: 30710711 [PubMed]
Helling AL, Viswanathan P, Cheliotis KS, Mobasseri SA, Yang Y, El Haj AJ, Watt FM. Dynamic Culture Substrates That Mimic the Topography of the Epidermal-Dermal Junction. Tissue Eng Part A. 2019 Feb;25(3-4):214-223. doi:10.1089/ten.TEA.2018.0125. Epub 2018 Dec 28. PubMed PMID: 30280972; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6388717 [PubMed]
Zijl S, Vasilevich AS, Viswanathan P, Helling AL, Beijer NRM, Walko G, Chiappini C, de Boer J, Watt FM. Micro-scaled topographies direct differentiation of human epidermal stem cells. Acta Biomater. 2019 Jan 15;84:133-145. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2018.12.003. Epub 2018 Dec 5. PubMed PMID: 30528608; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6336537 [PubMed]
Philippeos C, Telerman SB, Oulès B, Pisco AO, Shaw TJ, Elgueta R, Lombardi G, Driskell RR, Soldin M, Lynch MD, Watt FM. 'Spatial and Single-Cell Transcriptional Profiling Identifies Functionally Distinct Human Dermal Fibroblast Subpopulations.' J Invest Dermatol. 2018 Apr;13 8(4):811-825. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2018.01.016. Epub 2018 Jan 31. PMID: 29391249 [PubMed]
Ghahramani A, Donati G, Luscombe NM, Watt FM. 'Epidermal Wnt signalling regulates transcriptome heterogeneity and proliferative fate in neighbouring cells.' Genome Biol. 2018 Jan 15;19(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s13059-017-1384-y. PMID: 29334988 [PubMed]
Lynch MD, Lynch CNS, Craythorne E, Liakath-Ali K, Mallipeddi R, Barker JN, Watt FM. ‘Spatial constraints govern competition of mutant clones in human epidermis.’ Nat Commun. 2017 Oct 24;8(1):1119. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-00993-8. PMID: 29066762 [PubMed]
Mishra A, Oulès B, Pisco AO, Ly T, Liakath-Ali K, Walko G, Viswanathan P, Tihy M, Nijjher J, Dunn SJ, Lamond AI, Watt FM. ‘A protein phosphatase network controls the temporal and spatial dynamics of differentiation commitment in human epidermis.’ Elife. 2017 Oct 18;6. pii: e27356. doi: 10.7554/eLife.27356. PMID: 29043977 [PubMed]
Watt FM. ‘Engineered Microenvironments to Direct Epidermal Stem Cell Behavior at Single-Cell Resolution.’ Dev Cell. 2016 Sep 26;38(6):601-9. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2016.08.010. Review. PMID: 27676433 [PubMed]
Kerz M, Folarin A, Meleckyte R, Watt FM, Dobson RJ, Danovi D. 'A Novel Automated High-Content Analysis Workflow Capturing Cell Population Dynamics from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Live Imaging Data.' J Biomol Screen. 2016 Jun 2. pii: 1087057116652064. PMID: 27256155 [PubMed]
Reimer A, Vasilevich A, Hulshof F, Viswanathan P, van Blitterswijk CA, de Boer J, Watt FM. 'Scalable topographies to support proliferation and Oct4 expression by human induced pluripotent stem cells.' Sci Rep. 2016 Jan 13;6:18948. doi: 10.1038/srep18948. PMID: 26757610 [PubMed]
Viswanathan P, Guvendiren M, Chua W, Telerman SB, Liakath-Ali K, Burdick JA, Watt FM. 'Mimicking the topography of the epidermal-dermal interface with elastomer substrates.' Integr Biol (Camb). 2015 Dec 11. Viswanathan P, Guvendiren M, Chua W, Telerman SB, Liakath-Ali K, Burdick JA, Watt FM. PMID: 26658424 [PubMed]