#  Olivier Pourquié, Ph.D. 

Harvard Medical School

Brigham and Women's Hospital

 

 

 



   ![Olivier Pourquié, Development](/sites/g/files/omnuum10026/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/hsci/files/pouquie_olivier_development.jpg?itok=3j9VHFWw) 

 



 

 email <pourquie@genetics.med.harvard.edu> 

 laptop\_windows [Pourquié Lab](https://pourquielab.github.io/website/) 

 laptop\_windows [Olivier Pourquié publications](http://europepmc.org/search?query=%28AUTH%3A%22Pourqui%C3%A9%20Olivier%22%29&page=1) 

 laptop\_windows [Olivier Pourquié on Twitter](https://twitter.com/PourquieOlivier) 

 

 



 

### The Pourquié laboratory is a world leader in vertebrate musculo-skeletal axis development.

We are interested in the development of the vertebrate musculo-skeletal axis. Using chicken and mouse embryos as model systems, we combine developmental biology and genomic approaches to study patterning and differentiation of the precursors of muscles and vertebrae.

While most of this work has been carried out in vivo, we are developing protocols to recapitulate these early developmental processes in vitro using mouse and human embryonic or reprogrammed stem cells.

We are also turning to translational approaches, using our understanding of the early development to produce cells of the muscle and vertebral lineages in vitro from pluripotent cells to study human diseases of the musculo-skeletal axis and for cell therapy approaches.

### Biosketch ([see detailed CV here](/file_url/3016))

Olivier Pourquié is the Frank Burr Mallory Professor of Pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He was the director of the Institute for Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) in France and before that a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City. He graduated as an engineer in France and trained with Nicole Le Douarin. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the journal *Development* from 2009-2018.

Pourquié has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Academia Europea, the US National Academies of Sciences (NAS) and of Medicine (NAM), and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. His work on the segmentation clock that controls the periodicity of vertebrae was recognized as one of the milestones in developmental biology of the 20th century by *Nature*.

### Feature stories

[The first stem cell models of human spine development](/news/first-stem-cell-models-human-spine-development): HSCI researchers set the stage for better understanding musculoskeletal disorders and advancing treatments

[Five HMS Faculty Elected to National Academy of Sciences](https://hms.harvard.edu/news/five-hms-faculty-elected-national-academy-sciences)



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Research Interest(s)
    
     [Musculoskeletal Diseases](/person-disease-areas/musculoskeletal-disease)
- ## HSCI Status
    
     [Principal Faculty](/executive-committee/principal-faculty)
- ## Affiliation(s)
    
     [Brigham and Women's Hospital](/affiliations/brigham-and-womens-hospital) [Harvard Medical School](/affiliations/harvard-medical-school-department-genetics)
- ## Year
    
     [2021](/year/2021)