Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes is Professor of Developmental Biology in the Department of Anatomy and Embryology at the Leiden University Medical Center. She is also a visiting professor at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium. She is immediate past coordinator of the special interest group “Stem Cells” in the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). She was awarded a VENI (2006) and a VICI (2019) research grant from NWO/ZonMW and an ERC consolidator (2016) research grant from the EC. She coordinates the ZonMW PSIDER consortium HipGametes and is PI in the international Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine reNEW. She has also received an Aspasia premium twice and the Snoo – van 't Hoogerhuijs Foundation prize twice.

More information about Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes

Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes is Professor of Developmental Biology in the Department of Anatomy and Embryology at the Leiden University Medical Center. She is also a visiting professor at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium. She is immediate past coordinator of the special interest group “Stem Cells” in the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). She was awarded a VENI (2006) and a VICI (2019) research grant from NWO/ZonMW and an ERC consolidator (2016) research grant from the EC. She coordinates the ZonMW PSIDER consortium HipGametes and is PI in the international Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine reNEW. She has also received an Aspasia premium twice and the Snoo – van 't Hoogerhuijs Foundation prize twice.

Human Development

There is a growing interest in Human Development. Firstly, because it has become clear that malignant cells exploit early developmental programmes for their survival and growth, hence a deeper understanding of human development will have impact in cancer research. Second, because we want to develop better (and more efficient) models for in vitro differentiation to specific cell types of interest from human pluripotent stem cells or using a 3D-approach with organoids/organs-on-chip.

This chair combines expertise from in vivo human development (access to fetal material) with strong knowledge of in vitro human differentiation assays (tissue culture models), providing a mix of basic and applied research. In addition, there is strong embedding with top-notch single-cell technologies and computational biology as well as genome editing technologies. Our focus remains the urogenital system, developing assays to mature oocytes from human ovarian material and in vitro gametogenesis. This research is relevant to determine novel strategies for fertility preservation and develop innovative technologies in human reproduction.

The related NWA-routes are:

• Personalized medicine: starting from the individual
• Prevention and healthcare research
• Measuring and detecting: always, everything and everywhere
• Origin of life- on earth and in the universe

• Regenerative medicine: game changer on the way to widespread application

Academic career

Dr. Chuva de Sousa Lopes got her PhD from the University Utrecht (Hubrecht Institute) in 2004 (“BMPs, TGFbs and integrins in muscle and germ cell development in mice”) and delivered the inaugural lecture “Innovative Technologies in Human Reproduction: Challenges for the Future” in 2020 at the Leiden University.

In the last 5 years, Dr. Chuva de Sousa Lopes focused on the research aiming to characterise the human ovary during development and adulthood. For this, her research group has made use of single cell transcriptomics and the knowledge generated has been crucial to develop methods to culture human ovarian material in vitro and to develop protocols for in vitro gametogenesis using human pluripotent stem cells. This has resulted in the generation of several manuscripts in high-ranking journal such as Nature Communications (10.1038/s41467-019-11036-9) and Developmental Cell (10.1016/j.devcel.2024.01.006). Moreover, Chuva de Sousa Lopes focused on understanding how differences in the sex chromosomes lead to female or male gonadal differentiation. In the process, her research group has generated a differentiation protocol to generate primordial germ cells very efficiently from human pluripotent stem cells, published in Cell Rep Methods (10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100488).

Chuva de Sousa Lopes collaborated with LUMC colleagues, such as Prof. F Koning in Nature immunology (10.1038/s41590-018-0294-9) and Prof. T. Rabelink in Cell Stem Cell (10.1016/j.stem.2022.10.008); nationally with Prof. B. Eggen (Groningen) in Science (10.1126/science.aba5906) and Dr. Rios (Utrecht) in Nature Biotechnology (10.1038/s41587-021-00926-3); and internationally with Prof. Montseraat (Spain) in Nature Materials (10.1038/s41563-020-00804-4) and with Dr. Ebrahimkhani (USA) in Nature (10.1038/s41586-023-06914-8).

Activities