Smith Group Pluripotent stem cell biology Pluripotency is the flexibility of single cells to generate all cell types of the animal. This cellular plasticity is the foundation of mammalian development. In the embryo pluripotency is dynamic and short-lived, but in the laboratory pluripotent stem cells can be established and multiplied without limit. Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) exist in different states corresponding to developmental progression of the epiblast. We are particularly interested in naive PSCs, which are related to the pristine form of pluripotency that emerges in the inner cell mass of the pre-implantation embryo. We investigate the molecular basis of their unrestricted and unbiased lineage potential. We seek to understand: how pluripotency is captured and maintained in PSCs how the regulatory machinery of pluripotency is adapted between different mammals how pluripotent cells transition between states of competence how potency and competence are encoded in a dynamic regulatory system of chromatin, transcription factors and intercellular signalling Recent papers: Exit from naive pluripotency proceeds with variable latency but without asymmetric division to generate population heterogeneity – PubMed Inhibition of PRC2 enables self-renewal of blastoid-competent naive pluripotent stem cells from chimpanzee: Cell Stem Cell Propagating pluripotency – The conundrum of self‐renewal – Smith – BioEssays – Wiley Online Library Branching topology of the human embryo transcriptome revealed by Entropy Sort Feature Weighting | Development | The Company of Biologists ERK signalling eliminates Nanog and maintains Oct4 to drive the formative pluripotency transition | Development | The Company of Biologists Further information on the Smith Group: Profile | Living Systems Institute | University of Exeter Postdoc Opportunities If you are motivated by fundamental questions and have a fearless approach to scientific enquiry, I would be delighted to hear from you austin.smith@exeter.ac.uk PhD Opportunities