Mina Gouti's Biography

Mina Gouti, Group Leader, Max-Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine

Dr Mina Gouti is a Group Leader at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin. She has been working in the field of central nervous system development and stem cell research for many years with the goal to generate neurons with precise rostral - caudal identity from pluripotent stem cells. She obtained her Master’s degree in Molecular Medicine from the Imperial College in London. She received her PhD in Stem cells and Developmental Biology from the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens (Dr. A. Gavalas). During her postdoctoral research she developed an inducible system to generate neurons from pluripotent stem cells with refined rostral-caudal identity. She received a long term FEBs Fellowship to continue her post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. James Briscoe at the NIMR - Francis Crick Institute in London. Using pluripotent stem cells as a model system she showed that spinal cord neurons and paraxial mesoderm cells share a common origin, which is different from the origin of the anterior nervous system. Specifically during embryonic development spinal cord neurons and paraxial mesoderm cells are generated from a bipotential neuromesodermal progenitor (NMP) population located in the caudal lateral epiblast region of the developing embryo. Following the cues from mouse embryonic development she was able to generate this NMP population in vitro from mouse and human pluripotent stem cells. Her current research interest lies on the use of in vitro generated neuromesodermal progenitors to study human neuromuscular system development and disease.