Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Dr Stone has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Henry Dale Fellowship to lead research investigating how lineage history can impact vascular cell fate and function.

Dr Oliver Stone set to explore the developing vascular system

Dr Oliver Stone commences a Wellcome Trust Henry Dale Fellowship from Monday 1 June 2020 and is heading up a new research group here at DPAG. His team will be investigating the impact of lineage history on the terminal fate and function of endothelial cells in blood and lymphatic vessels. The Fellowship will fund his new lab for the next five years.

Dr Stone studied a PhD on the neovascularization of adult tissues at the University of Bristol, before undertaking his postdoctoral work with Didier Stainier at the University of California and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research. In a major 2016 Nature paper, Dr Stone identified the earliest known transcriptional regular of endothelial/blood cell differentiation from mesoderm and went onto find the mesodermal source of endothelial cells to be a key determinant of their eventual fate in research published in Developmental Cell last year. As reported in DPAG news, 2019's “Paraxial mesoderm is the major source of lymphatic endothelium” revealed the earliest known step in the formation of the lymphatic vasculature, marking a significant step in our understanding of how blood and lymphatic vessels are formed.

Bringing with him a body of work that has helped advance the department's Development and Cell Biology theme of research, Dr Stone is now poised to develop a new branch of enquiry into the cellular origins of our blood and lymphatic vessels.

The innermost layer of blood and lymphatic vessels is formed by a specialized cell type known as endothelial cells, which are essential for tissue development and repair. Despite their importance we still know relatively little about how these cells are specified during embryonic development. Our research aims to decipher the cellular and molecular control of endothelial cell differentiation from mesoderm. The Sir Henry Dale award will allow us to define a molecular blueprint for the generation of system and organ specific endothelial cells, and establish whether endothelial cells display lineage-dependent responses to developmental and pathological stimuli, analyses that may transform the way we interpret and treat cardiovascular and degenerative disease” - Dr Oliver Stone

 

Read more about Dr Stone's research programme on the Stone Group website.

Read more about the Sir Henry Dale Fellowship on the Wellcome Trust website.