The people behind the papers - Anish Dattani and Ge Guo

The ability to propagate human naïve pluripotent stem cells (nPSCs) has allowed researchers to address questions about early development that were not previously accessible. The culture conditions themselves have provided insights into the signals required for self-renewal; now, a paper published in Development describes the pathway downstream of XAV939, a tankyrase inhibitor, required for maintenance of human nPSCs but not mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs). We caught up with first author Anish Dattani and corresponding author Ge Guo, a group leader at the Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, to find out more about their research.