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 vitro pluripotent stem cells can be established and multiplied without limit. The most pristine type of pluripotent stem cell exists in a naive state, as in the pre-implantation embryo. To execute their potential for differentiation, naive cells must gain lineage competence, a process termed formative transition. We seek to understand: how the trajectory and regulatory machinery of pluripotency are adapted between different mammals how pluripotent cells transition between states of competence and how fate decisions are made how potency and competence are encoded in a dynamic regulatory system of intercellular signals, transcription factors and chromatin Recent papers: 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