Nicolas D Plachta

William Richard Gordon President's Distinguished Professor in Genetics

Scientific Director , Cell and Developmental Biology Microscopy Core

Department: Cell and Developmental Biology

Contact information

9-123 Smilow Center for Translational Research
3400 Civic Center Blvd
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Office: 215-573-7462

Email:
Nicolas.Plachta@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Graduate Group Affiliations

Cell and Molecular Biology

Publications

Search PubMed for articles

Education:
B.Sc. (Biology)
University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and University of Tel-Aviv (Israel), 2003.
Ph.D. (Neurobiology)
University of Basel, Switzerland, 2007.

Links
Search PubMed for articles
Lab website

Post-Graduate Training
Postdoctoral Researcher, California Institute of Technology, 2008-2011.

Permanent link

> Perelman School of Medicine > Faculty > Details

Description of Research Expertise

Research Interests
The Plachta lab uses live imaging technologies to study how the early mammalian embryo forms. Our goal is to reveal how cells choose their fate, shape and position in real time and in vivo to form a living mammalian organism.

Key words: Live imaging, mammalian development, single-cell biology, morphogenesis

Selected Publications

Zenker J, White M, Gasnier M, Alvarez Y, Lim G, Bissiere S, Biro M, Plachta N: Expanding Actin Rings Zipper the Mouse Embryo for Blastocyst Formation. Cell 173(3): 776-791.e17, 04 2018.

Zenker J, White M, Templin R, Parton R, Thorn-Seshold O, Bissiere S, Plachta N: A microtubule-organizing center directing intracellular transport in the early mouse embryo. Science 357(6354): 925-928, Sep 2017.

White M, Angiolini J, Alvarez Y, Kaur G, Zhao Z, Mocskos E, Bruno L, Bissiere S, Levi V, Plachta N: Long-Lived Binding of Sox2 to DNA Predicts Cell Fate in the Four-Cell Mouse Embryo. Cell 165: 75-87, 2016.

Samarage C, White M, Álvarez Y, Fierro-González J, Henon Y, Jesudason E, Bissiere S, Fouras A, Plachta N: Cortical Tension Allocates the First Inner Cells of the Mammalian Embryo. Developmental Cell 34(4): 435-47, Aug 2015.

Fierro-González J, White M, Silva J, Plachta N: Cadherin-dependent filopodia control preimplantation embryo compaction. Nature Cell Biology. Nature Publishing Group, 15(12): 1424-33, Dec 2013.

Kaur G, Costa M, Nefzger C, Silva J, Fierro-González J, Polo J, Bell T, Plachta N: Probing transcription factor diffusion dynamics in the living mammalian embryo with photoactivatable fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. Nature Communications Mar: 1637, 2013.

Plachta N, Bollenbach T, Pease S, Fraser S, Pantazis P: Oct4 kinetics predict cell lineage patterning in the early mammalian embryo. Nature Cell Biology. Nature Publishing Group, 13(2): 117-23, Feb 2011.