The prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Programme (YIP) supports exceptionally talented life scientists who have been group leaders for fewer than four years (excluding career breaks), offering mentorship, training and financial support for networking. As a new Young Investigator, Michelle joins an international community of more than 800 current and former EMBO awardees. 

“I’m honoured and thrilled to become an EMBO Young Investigator. It recognises the hard work and exciting research in my team, and we look forward to taking advantage of the excellent collaboration and networking opportunities the award provides.”  Michelle Percharde, LMS Group Leader

Michelle leads a team investigating how transposable elements (TEs) – mobile pieces of DNA that can make copies of themselves and integrate into new positions within the genome – shape early embryonic development and contribute to disease. Although tightly controlled in most adult cells, several TEs are reactivated during early development, where they play essential roles in regulating the embryo’s earliest decisions. When misregulated later in life, these same elements can drive harmful effects including DNA damage, mutations and inflammation and have been linked to several diseases, including some types of cancer. 

Using mouse and human embryonic stem cells, embryo models and gene-editing tools including CRISPR, imaging and bioinformatics, Michelle’s team is advancing our understanding of how TEs are controlled, how they influence healthy development and how their dysregulation contributes to conditions such as cancer, senescence, infertility and inflammation. 

Michelle joined the LMS as a group leader in May 2019, funded by one of the first ever UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships. Before this, she studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before completing her PhD at Imperial College London.  She did her postdoctoral training in the USA, supported by a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California San Francisco with Professor Miguel Ramalho-Santos. At the LMS, Michelle successfully established her group while also incorporating two periods of maternity leave and the COVID pandemic. She combines her work on TEs and development with also championing efforts to support female scientists such as the LMS Roving Researcher scheme. 

 “Being chosen for the EMBO Young Investigator Programme is a remarkable achievement and is testament to Michelle’s dedication, creativity and collaborative spirit, which embody the values we strive for as an institute. We are proud to see her work acknowledged at such a high level and excited to support the next stages of her scientific journey.”  Professor Wiebke Arlt, Director of the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences