Vincent Pasque
pasquelab.bsky.social
Vincent Pasque
@pasquelab.bsky.social
Stem cell and developmental biologist, Professor @ University of Leuven, Belgium. #Pluripotency #Epigenetics
Pinned
Excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications @natcomms.nature.com
(www.nature.com/articles/s41...)

We show how cells can sense when individual genes are lost and compensate by upregulating the remaining gene copy.

With Ryan Allsop, Jeffrey Boeren, Beatrice Tan, Joost Gribnau and others.
James D Watson, co-discoverer of DNA’s twisted-ladder structure, dies aged 97.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
James D Watson, co-discoverer of DNA’s twisted-ladder structure, dies aged 97
Nobel prize winner shaped medicine, crimefighting and genealogy but later years marred by racist remarks
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
I am absolutely delighted to share the invited speakers for our upcoming @bsdb.bsky.social "Molecules to Morphogenesis" meeting!

Registration and abstract submission is now open - join us!

bsdb.org/meetings/

March 23-26, 2026 - UK
October 23, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
“I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing, this is quite ridiculous.”

A privilege to have known John. He always listened to what one had to say with great intent. If you knew him, you know what I mean.
🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
John Gurdon obituary: Biologist who made cloning possible
He showed that specialized cells retain the genes to form an organism.
www.nature.com
October 20, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
Adios and salut to a pioneer!

Sir John Gurdon studied the requirements and barriers of #reprogramming.

Highly relevant for us, with his PhD student Vincent Pasque he showed that macroH2A is part of the epigenetic barrier inhibiting reprogramming.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
Sad to hear about the passing of John Gurdon, a titan and pioneer of developmental biology and much more. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, shared with Shinya Yamanaka, who actually was inspired by his work
www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
Nobel Laureate Professor Sir John Gurdon dies aged 92
It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the Gurdon Institute.
www.cam.ac.uk
October 7, 2025 at 5:13 PM
It is with profound sadness that I have learned of the passing of my beloved PhD supervisor, John Gurdon. We have lost a true giant, an incredible mentor, kind and generous, whose contributions to science will inspire generations. He changed my life, and the lives of so many others.
October 8, 2025 at 8:40 AM
I spoke with Benjamin Thompson on the Nature Podcast about a new study that uses stem cell-based embryo models – blastoids – to uncover how a recently evolved cis-regulatory element became essential for early human embryo gene regulatory programs.

Tune in a share your thoughts below.
October 2, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK.
Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD
A human-specific regulatory mechanism revealed in a pre-implantation model
Nature - Genetic manipulation of blastoids reveals the role of recently emerged transposable elements and genes in human development.
rdcu.be
October 1, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Excited to share our latest News & Views published in Nature! @nature.com
rdcu.be/eI2NJ

Sherif Khodeer and I discuss how stem cell-based embryo models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development.
October 1, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications @natcomms.nature.com
(www.nature.com/articles/s41...)

We show how cells can sense when individual genes are lost and compensate by upregulating the remaining gene copy.

With Ryan Allsop, Jeffrey Boeren, Beatrice Tan, Joost Gribnau and others.
September 30, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
📣 It is my pleasure to announce our recent review with Margherita on the current approaches, challenges, and perspectives in studying human maternal-fetal interface using in vitro models www.cell.com/cell-stem-ce... 🚀✨️
September 5, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Exciting postdoc position to study X-chromosome inactivation using stem cell-based embryos models, advanced imaging and single-cell omics at the Pasque lab, University of Leuven – KU Leuven, Belgium. International team, amazing collaborators. Full details: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...
September 3, 2025 at 8:46 AM
We are hiring a Lab Technician! Join our lab at the University of Leuven - KU Leuven, working on stem cell biology and epigenetics. Perform key molecular/cell biology techniques and manage lab operations. Full/part-time contract. Apply by Sept 30!
More info: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...
September 3, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Exciting Research Professorship Position in Stem Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Leuven. Amazing research ecosystem, great colleagues, high quality of life, tenure track. For those interested in joining us, please see below:
www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...
July 7, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
It was fun reflecting on how my career path took me from a focus on cancer research to developmental biology, the urge to understand how development and tissue homeostasis work and how my time at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch contributed to this. Thank you, Katrin Bühler-Popowski, for the interview!
June 25, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
Collaborative science is just so much fun! From our brilliant collaboration with Liz Robertson from @dunnschool.bsky.social; embryology, single cell omics and computational biology deliver new insights into the intricacies of blood and endothelial development. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
June 24, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
1/10🧵 New preprint! 🚀
We built a resource of 20 clonal human naïve pluripotent stem cell lines from 10 blastocysts. Explore embryo-to-embryo and clone-to-clone variation in one place.
👉doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.02.657331
June 4, 2025 at 6:17 PM
We are delighted to share our new preprint “X-chromosome upregulation operates on a gene-by-gene basis at RNA and protein levels”.
biorxiv.org/content/earl...
June 24, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
⚠️ I am really excited to share the work of Anastasios Balaskas, an excellent PhD candidate in the lab, with the wider world. Tasos made a significant advance: generating a stem cell-based embryo model that contains both posterior and anterior neural tissues of the late-stage gastrulating embryo.
June 23, 2025 at 7:51 AM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
Join us in the #institutcurie exceptional environment to explore the mysteries of X chromosome regulation in early human development
If you are interested by epigenetics, early human development in excellent scientific environment in middle of Paris, we are recruiting a postdoc.
app.beetween.com/WeaselWeb/p/...
Don't hesitate to apply or share the post !
Beetween
app.beetween.com
June 18, 2025 at 9:44 AM
I am delighted to congratulate Janet Rossant on receiving the LSO Lifetime Achievement Award! Janet’s work on early embryos has shaped the field and inspired so many of us.

Here is a wonderful video about Janet and her recent award: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZa7...
www.youtube.com
June 3, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by Vincent Pasque
I’m incredibly proud to share the results of our lab’s first project, leading to the exciting discovery – Aging promotes reactivation of the Barr body at distal chromosome regions – now published in @nataging.nature.com!
🔗 tinyurl.com/3jkzzy7d
May 2, 2025 at 7:57 PM
We are excited to host Dr. Maxim Greenberg and Dr. Courtney Hanna this week to kickoff the Leuven Epigenetics Club!
April 28, 2025 at 1:10 PM