Meritxell Huch PhD

Dr. Meritxell Huch is a Junior Group Leader at the Gurdon Institute. After obtaining her PhD degree in Gene Therapy and pancreatic cancer at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain, she moved to the Netherlands to join the laboratory of Professor Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in order to redirect the focus of her research into Adult Stem Cell Biology. In the first stage of her pos-doctoral research, she isolated, for the first time, the stem cells responsible for the rapid turnover of the adult stomach and proved that these adult stomach stem cells can be maintained and expanded in culture, forming "mini-stomachs" structures in vitro. Then, she moved her research to the understanding of the role and replicative potential of liver progenitors during liver regeneration.