Dr. Bénédicte Chazaud is Director of Research class 1 (eq. of Professor) and Leader of the team "Stem cell environment and skeletal muscle homeostasis" at Institut NeuroMyoGène (INMG) INSERM U1217-CNRS 5310, Université Claude Bernard in Lyon, France.
The research of her team is dedicated on the role of environmental cells on adult muscle stem cell behavior in skeletal muscle regeneration and during myopathies. The Chazaud lab was pioneer in bringing the concept of a stromal support for these cells to promote an efficient muscle regeneration. Particularly, they have been extensively studying macrophage biology in this process. They described that beyond their role in innate immunity through scavenging debris, macrophages directly act on muscle stem cells to regulate adult myogenesis. Similarly, while vessels are usually considered only as oxygen and nutriment providers, the work from Dr. Chazaud identified new interactions between endothelial or peri-endothelial cells with muscle stem cells that regulate their fate. The goal of these studies is to decipher the cell interactions that allow a proper myogenesis after muscle injury and to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying these interactions. These investigations are pursued in both normal muscle regeneration as well as in the context of degenerating myopathies.

Bente Klarlund Pedersen, MD MDSc, is Professor of Integrative Medicine and a specialist in infectious diseases and internal medicine. She is the Director of the Centre of Inflammation and Metabolism (CIM) and the Centre for Physical Activity Research (CFAS) funded by TrygFonden. CIM and CFAS count 17 senior researchers/postdocs, 17 PhD students, 21 other academic and technical personnel, 5 pre-graduate students and an administration of 5 persons (http://aktivsundhed.dk). She has supervised 47 PhD projects and been a mentor of 5 doctoral theses.
The research group has identified skeletal muscle as an endocrine organ that produces and releases so-called “myokines”. The identification of myokines provides a conceptual basis for understanding how muscles communicate with other organs. Through translational research, the aim is to develop targeted exercise training regimes for specific disease groups by applying a translational strategy: “from bedside to bench and back”. BKP has had many positions of trust and is a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. BKP has more than 650 scientific publications, > 41.000 citation and her “H”-index is 107 (Web of Science).

Olivier Pourquie is Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is an Associate Member of the Broad Institute and a Principal Faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He was the director of the Institute for Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) in France and before that a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Institute in Kansas City.
The Pourquie laboratory is a world leader in vertebrate musculo-skeletal axis development. Using chicken and mouse embryos as model systems, they combine developmental biology and genomic approaches to study patterning and differentiation of the precursors of muscles and vertebrae. They also develop quantitative approaches at the interface with physics to study morphogenesis of the vertebral column. While most of this work is being carried out in vivo, they also develop protocols to recapitulate these early developmental processes in vitro using mouse and human embryonic or reprogrammed stem cells. They are also turning to translational approaches, using their understanding of the early development to produce cells of the muscle and vertebral lineages in vitro from pluripotent cells to study human diseases of the musculo-skeletal axis and for cell therapy approaches.
Dr. Pourquie graduated as an engineer in France and trained with Nicole Le Douarin in Paris. He authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and of the Academia Europea. His work on the segmentation clock that controls the periodicity of vertebrae was recognized as one of the milestones in developmental biology of the 20th century by Nature Magazine.

Alessandra Sacco is Associate Professor of Development, Aging and Regeneration Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA. Since 2012 she also actively participates to the Sanford Burnham Prebys Graduate Program of Biological Sciences, and since 2014 she serves as Associate Dean of Curriculum for the Program. The research of her team focuses on skeletal muscle stem cells (MuSC) and their role in homeostatic maintenance and tissue repair.
The Sacco laboratory identified STAT3 signaling as a major regulator of MuSC function. They have shown that STAT3 signaling promotes MuSC activation and commitment through regulation of mitochondrial function. Given the chronic activation of this signaling pathway in several muscle diseases, the team is developing tools for its transient inhibition, to promote tissue repair. Recently, her group pioneered multicolor lineage tracing studies in muscles in vivo to track the dynamics of clonal heterogeneity in the MuSC compartment. They demonstrated that upon repeated tissue injury the clonal heterogeneity of MuSC is progressively reduced, unveiling significant changes in MuSC composition in response to stress. The goal of this research is to define the networks regulating MuSC fate decisions, and through manipulation of the microenvironment or the sensitivity of MuSC to external signals, to develop approaches to be utilized for regenerative medicine for muscle diseases.