[The Svedberg seminar] – The evolution of new vertebrate cell types and organs
March 9, 2026 @ 15:15 – 16:15 CET
Margarida Cardoso-Moreira
PhD Group Leader of Evolutionary Developmental Biology lab at the Francis Crick Institute, UK
Bio
Margarida Cardoso Moreira leads the Evolutionary Developmental Biology lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London. Her lab focuses on understanding how new cells, tissues, and organs originate using pregnancy as a model. Margarida did her PhD research in Manyuan Long’s group at the University of Chicago. She then took a postdoctoral position in Andrew G. Clark’s group at Cornell University. While at Chicago and Cornell, Margarida investigated the evolution of newly duplicated genes. Margarida then joined the group of Henrik Kaessmann (University of Lausanne and Heidelberg University), where she spearheaded a research program on the evolution of mammalian organs, for which she received the Otto-Schmeil prize from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2020.
The evolution of new vertebrate cell types and organs
How do new cells, new tissues, and entire new organs arise during evolution? Our lab investigates these questions using an organ that has evolved independently many times and is remarkably diverse: the placenta. The placenta forms through the fusion of embryonic and maternal tissues to enable the transfer of nutrients, waste, and more during gestation. Placentas have evolved more than 100 times independently among vertebrates, including once in mammals. Within a family of small live-bearing fishes known as Poeciliidae, at least nine independent origins of the placenta have occurred. This makes them excellent models for studying how new organs emerge during evolution. We combined whole-genome sequencing, single-cell RNA and ATAC sequencing, and imaging to uncover the molecular, cellular, and developmental basis of five independent origins of a placenta in Poeciliids. We found that the evolution of a novel cell type unique to Poeciliids allowed this family to transition from egg-laying to live-bearing through egg retention. This cell type was subsequently and independently co-opted five times to form the placenta in five species. Across these independently evolved placentas, we observe strong convergence at the molecular level, with specific genes and pathways repeatedly recruited during placental evolution. Together, our findings provide empirical support for a model in which cell-type innovation drives the emergence of new organs and demonstrate that major life history transitions can follow predictable developmental and molecular trajectories.
Host: leif.andersson@imbim.uu.se UU
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