Sophie Petropoulos

Sophie Petropoulos holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Functional Genomics of Reproduction and Development, is currently an Associate Professor at the Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Science, Intervention, and Technology and the University of Montreal, Department of Medicine and Co-Director of The Research Center in Reproduction and Fertility in Quebec. Sophie has merged her expertise in the fields of physiology,  developmental biology, epigenetics and single-cell genomics to gain an understanding of early preimplantation development. Her research focuses on early human development and infertility, using cutting edge molecular biology techniques applied to both in vitro and in vivo models.  The overall goals of her research program are to determine fundamental mechanism(s) governing early human embryogenesis and to identify external insults which may negatively impact the offspring’s life-trajectories and ultimately manifest in disease/disorders later in life.   Findings from her work can also broadly be applied to stem cell biology and toward the improvement of Assisted Reproduction.

*Embryo, Development, Epigenome, Single-Cell OMICs, Artificial Reproduction,
Fetal Programming*
*The Petropoulos lab aims to:*
1) Investigate how the early ex vivo environment, as occuring during
Artificial Reproduction, impacts the developmental trajectory of the embryo
and placenta- potentially programming the developing fetus for disease and
disorder later in life.
2) Investigate signaling occuring between the polar side of the human
embryo and endometrium to shed light on underlying mechanisms of
implantation. We hope to ultimately establish predictive biomarkers
associated with successful implantation.

3) Unravel the molecular circuitries governing lineage formation during very early embryogenesis.