Prof Davor Solter

Davor Solter

Senior Principal Investigator, Mammalian Development

oocyte-to-embryo transition; reprogramming; mouse/human embryonic stem cell differentiation

Biography

Davor Solter earned his M.D. (1965) and Ph.D. (1971) from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. He was Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor in the Departments of Anatomy and Biology, University of Zagreb Medical School, between 1966-1973. In 1973 he moved to the Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, USA and became Member and Professor in 1981, as well as Wistar Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1991, he was made a Member of the Max Planck Society and was appointed Director of the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, USA.

In 2008, he joined the Institute of Medical Biology as a Senior Principal Investigator with a joint appointment as Professor at the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School. He is a member of numerous editorial and advisory boards. Davor is a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the European Molecular Biology Organisation and of Academia Europea. In 1998, he received March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology for pioneering the concept of genomic imprinting and in 2007 he received the Rosenstiel Award (shared with Azim Surani and Mary Lyon) for the discovery of imprinting.

Through his career Davor Solter has made significant contributions to many areas of mammalian developmental biology, including differentiation of germ layers, the role of cell surface molecules in regulating early development, the biology and genetics of teratocarcinomas, the biology of embryonic stem cells, genomic imprinting, and cloning. His current research interest focuses on genetic and epigenetic mechanism regulating preimplantation mouse development and reprogramming in human embryonic stem cells.

Representative Publications

1. Regenberg A, Mathews DJ, Blass DM, Bok H, Coyle JT, Duggan P, Faden R, Finkel J, Gearhart JD, Hillis A, Hoke A, Johnson R, Johnston M, Kahn J, Kerr D, King P, Kurtzberg J, Liao SM, McDonald JW, McKhann G, Nelson KB, Rao M, Siegel AW, Smith K, Solter D et. al. 2009. The role of animal models in evaluating reasonable safety and efficacy for human trials of cell-based interventions for neurologic conditions. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 29(1):1-9.

2. Duggan PS, Siegel AW, Blass DM, Bok H, Coyle JT, Faden R, Finkel J, Gearhart JD, Greely HT, Hillis A, Hoke A, Johnson R, Johnston M, Kahn J, Kerr D, King P, Kurtzberg J, Liao SM, McDonald JW, McKhann G, Nelson KB, Rao M, Regenberg A, Smith K, Solter D et. al. 2009. Unintended changes in cognition, mood, and behavior arising from cell-based interventions for neurological conditions: ethical challenges. Am J Bioeth. 9(5):31-6.

3. Solter, D. 2006. From teratocarcinomas to embryonic stem cells and beyond: a history of embryonic stem cell research. Nat. Rev. Genet. 7: 319-327.

4. Motosugi, N., Dietrich, J.-E., Polanski, Z., Solter, D., and Hiiragi, T. 2006. Space asymmetry directs preferential sperm entry in the absence of polarity in the mouse oocyte. PloS Biology 4: e135.

5. Solter, D. 2005. Politically correct human embryonic stem cells? N. Engl. J. Med. 353: 2321-2323.

6. Motosugi, N., Bauer, T., Polanski, Z., Solter, D., and Hiiragi, T. 2005. Polarity of the mouse embryo is established at blastocyst and is not prepatterned. Genes Dev. 19: 1081-1092.

7. Kemler, R., Hierholzer, A., Kanzler, B., Kuppig, S., Hansen, K., Taketo, M.M., de Vries, W.N., Knowles, B.B., and Solter, D. 2004. Stabilization of b-catenin in the mouse zygote leads to premature epithelial-mesenchymal transition in the epiblast. Development 131: 5817-5824.

8. Solter, D., Hiiragi, T., Evsikov, A.V., Moyer, J., de Vries, W.N., Peaston, A.E., and Knowles, B.B. 2004. Epigenetic mechanisms in early mammalian development. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 69: 11-17.

9. Hiiragi, T. and Solter, D. 2004. First cleavage plane of the mouse egg is not predetermined but defined by the topology of the two apposing nuclei. Nature 430: 360-364.

10. Solter, D., Beyleveld, D., Friele, M.B., Holowka, J., Lilie, H., Lovell-Badge, R., Mandla, C., Martin, U. and Pardo Avellaneda, R. Embryo Research in Pluralistic Europe, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2003.

11. Solter, D. 2000. Mammalian cloning: advances and limitations. Nat. Rev. Genet. 1: 199-207.

12. Solter, D. 1988. Differential imprinting and expression of maternal and paternal genomes. Ann. Rev. Genet. 22: 127-146.