Fredrik Lanner


Fredrik Lanner works to understand how the first cell types are specified and how pluripotency is controlled in the human embryo. Fredrik Lanner undertook his PhD thesis at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm in 2008 followed by postdoctoral research in Janet Rossants laboratory at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. In Toronto he studied the role of FGF signaling in the early mouse embryo and embryonic stem cells (Yamanaka et al., Development 2010, Lanner and Rossant Development 2010, Lanner et al., Stem Cells 2010). Having returned to Karolinska Institutet, he started his independent research lab in 2013 with the aim of translating knowledge established in the mouse to the human embryo. The lab has so far established a transcriptional road map of lineage specification and identified a distinct X-chromosome dosage compensation process that operates in the human embryo and naïve stem cells (Petropoulos et. al., Cell 2016). Through a proteomic approach the lab has undertaken a comprehensive screen identifying cell surface markers that distinguish naïve and primed pluripotent stem cells (Collier et. al., Cell Stem Cell 2017). Currently the lab is mapping the second week of human development and identifying the transition from naïve to primed pluripotency in vivo. Furthermore the laboratory has establishing clinically compliant ES cells within the Karolinska Hospital GMP facility and works towards stem cell based treatment of age-related macular degeneration (Plaza-Reyes et al., Stem Cell Report 2016) and diabetes. Within this work the lab strives to find approaches to address rejection following allogeneic transplantations.