Sergio Menchero Fernandez

Postdoctoral Fellow

Sergio did his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the Autonomous University of Madrid. During this time, he undertook a year studentship in Miguel Manzanares’ lab at the CNIC (Madrid), to study the regulation of the trophectoderm lineage in the mouse preimplantation embryo. After doing a Master in Molecular and Cell Biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Sergio joined Miguel Manzanares’ lab as a PhD student thanks to a “FPI-Severo Ochoa” fellowship in 2014. He focused on the transition of the totipotent embryo towards the activation of the first lineages studying the interplay of the Notch and Hippo pathways. During his PhD, Sergio carried out a short stay in Kat Hadjantonakis’ lab at the Sloan Kettering Institute (New York) learning live imaging techniques.

In 2019, Sergio joined James Turner’s lab as a postdoc and in 2020, he was awarded an HFSP Long-Term fellowship. His project focuses on the epigenetic mechanisms regulating X-chromosome inactivation during mammalian evolution using the opossum as a marsupial model organism. Beyond their relevance from a sex chromosome evolution perspective, marsupials also exhibit very interesting features during embryonic development. Sergio is also studying the strategies that marsupials follow to deal with a very short gestational period and how they prioritise the differentiation of certain structures.

Sergio is a member of the Young Embryologist Network organising committee and a member of preLights, the preprint highlights service hosted by The Company of Biologists.