Research Associate
Biography/Research interests
Daniel Ortmann graduated in Molecular Medicine from the University of Ulm (Germany) in 2008. During his master´s project in Ali Khademhosseini´s lab at Harvard-MIT HST, he studied how to use tissue-engineering to control the microenvironment of mouse embryonic stem cells and thus direct their differentiation. He earned his PhD in Stem Cell Biology from the Department of Surgery at the University of Cambridge in 2014 with Prof. Roger Pedersen, generating and characterising distinct mesodermal and cardiac progenitor populations. In 2014 he joined Prof. Ludovic Vallier to explore inducible modulation of gene function, forward programming and the mechanisms of commitment of early mesodermal and endodermal cell types.
Key publications
Pawlowski M*, Ortmann D*, Bertero A*, Tavares JM3, Pedersen RA, Vallier L, Kotter MR ( 2017) Inducible and Deterministic Forward Programming of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells into Neurons, Skeletal Myocytes, and Oligodendrocytes. Stem Cell Reports. Mar 13. pii: S2213-6711(17)30083-8.
*equal contribution
Bertero A*, Pawlowski M*, Ortmann D*, Snijders K, Yiangou L, Cardoso de Brito M, Brown S, Bernard WG, Cooper JD, Giacomelli E, Gambardella L, Hannan NR, Iyer D, Sampaziotis F, Serrano F, Zonneveld MC, Sinha S, Kotter M, Vallier L (2016) Optimized inducible shRNA and CRISPR/Cas9 platforms for in vitro studies of human development using hPSCs. Development. Dec 1;143(23):4405-4418.
Mendjan S, Mascetti VL*, Ortmann D*, Ortiz M, Karjosukarso DW, Ng Y, Moreau T, Pedersen RA (2014) NANOG and CDX2 pattern distinct subtypes of human mesoderm during exit from pluripotency.” Cell Stem Cell. Sep 4;15(3):310-25.
Bernardo AS, Faial T, Gardner L, Niakan KK, Ortmann D, Senner CE, Callery EM, Trotter MW, Hemberger M, Smith JC, Bardwell L, Moffett A, Pedersen RA (2011). BRACHYURY and CDX2 mediate BMP-induced differentiation of human and mouse pluripotent stem cells into embryonic and extraembryonic lineages. Cell Stem Cell. Aug 5;9(2):144-55.
Hwang YS*, Chung BG*, Ortmann D*, Hattori N, Moeller HC, Khademhosseini A (2009) Microwell-mediated control of embryoid body size regulates embryonic stem cell fate via differential expression of WNT5a and WNT11.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Oct 6;106(40):16978-83.
Areas of expertise:
pluripotent stem cells, directed differentiation, developmental biology, mechanisms of lineage commitment, genetic modification, forward programming