Genetics Seminar Series: "Stem cells and embryos: from mouse to human development"

The development of the mammalian blastocyst involves formation of three distinct cell lineages, which can generate related stem cell lines in culture. The signaling pathways and downstream transcriptional responses involved in lineage specification are quite well understood. Are the same pathways used in human development? Are stem cell lines from the human blastocyst a good system to model normal human development? Cross-species comparisons are increasingly important in order to make sense of newly developing stem cell embryo models.