Interview Empowering Cells’ and Scientists’ Potential for Cell Therapies
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla about empowering a team and her enthusiasm for epigenetics: The energy of this accomplished scientist is at the highest when thinking and researching about how to bring back cells in the status of totipotency so that they can produce all cell types in the body.
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla about empowering a team and her enthusiasm for epigenetics: The energy of this accomplished scientist is at the highest when thinking and researching about how to bring back cells in the status of totipotency so that they can produce all cell types in the body.
"I want to create cells ‘à la carte’ to facilitate cell therapies that can cure brain injuries and degenerative diseases."
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, Director of the Stem Cell Center (rotating), Director of the Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells, Director of Biomedicine at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus, Helmholtz
Munich
Having started her career with research on parasites, Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla’s fascination was early drawn to the research field of epigenetics. Epigenetics is about adjusting to the environment – and this is also in Maria-Elena’s nature: She likes to make decisions paving the way to achieve the goal.
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla about the outstanding opportunity to build a Reprogramming Center at Helmholtz Munich – and her role in this mission as one of the Heads of the Stem Cell Center and the Director of Biomedicine at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus.
You are one of the Heads of the Stem Cell Center, Director of the Institute for Epigenetics & Stem Cells, and Director of Biomedicine at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus at Helmholtz Munich: What do you like about running teams?
METP: I like working with people and I like to bring them to work together efficiently. I also like to help people to do more than what they think they can do: I enjoy making decisions that I think could be helpful for other people, to make sure that people are doing things in a better way or going beyond their own limits. To have the bigger picture and empower people to make impactful decisions that bring them or a project forward, is something that makes me happy.
"It is in my nature to get inspired by my team members."
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla
How do you see your role as a team leader?
METP: I think it is important to have not only the bigger picture in mind but also every individual person in your team with their own needs and abilities: The head of a team has to know what makes people happy: From the most senior person to the youngest trainee, regardless of what they work on.
How do you create a powerful team?
METP: I try to recruit people who I think are much better than me because the inspiration between colleagues makes a team efficient to achieve breakthroughs in research. I am also convinced that a diverse team is more inspiring – and diversity means to me much more than just having women and men in a team. It means for me including everybody: People with different nationalities, from different backgrounds, from underrepresented minorities. I am convinced that this diversity leads to more inspiration because we all think from different points of view based on where we come from and what we have endured and experienced. That promotes creativity in science.
"Diversity inspires and promotes creativity that drives science forward."
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla
How did you become interested in epigenetics?
METP: I started working on parasites when I was very young in Mexico. Then, I realized how these parasites can be different: They have features that allow them to invade your body. From there, I got fascinated to understand cell differentiation and cell identity, and how these cells communicate and signal to stimuli, including parasites!! So, I started working with embryos: For me, it is exciting to find answers on what makes cells in the early embryo capable of generating a body through epigenetic mechanisms. I want to understand these processes to create cells à la carte. This, I believe, will open many possibilities for cell therapies to cure, for example, brain injuries and degenerative diseases.
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla about her fascination with epigenetics.
What is tricky about reprogramming?
METP: In mammals, epigenetic reprogramming, the acquisition and loss of totipotency, and the first cell fate decision all occur within a three-to-six-day window after fertilization of the oocyte by the sperm. We need to have more detailed knowledge about the molecular processes to uncover principles of stem cells, chromatin biology, and thus regenerative medicine.
Epigenetics and Cell-Fate in Early Mammalian Development
In the lab of Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla researchers combine high-resolution microscopy with single-cell genomics to study the epigenetic principles underlying cellular reprogramming in the mouse embryo.
What direct impact does your research have on human health?
METP: Understanding how cells make their own thing has a tremendous potential impact on health research: We can open avenues by finding answers to the questions of why a specific cell in your body, in the skin for example, does one thing and a cell in a neuron does another – and how a cell has the capacity to do that. With this knowledge, we have ways to reprogram cells and generate novel therapies. Basically, it is like engineering cells for what we want them to be.
Is “reprogramming” an ethical issue?
METP: We focus on bringing cells back to totipotency, to the state they had at the beginning of life: in the embryo. However, we do not create a new being by doing so, we just generate cells, which are very plastic. We envisage these cells can be used to replace injured or disabled ones to cure for example neurodegenerative diseases or brain injuries.
Also, it is important to know that all this research is very strongly regulated ethically and legally,– not only in Germany or Bavaria but internationally.
"Epigenetics is a link that can put together a lot of the different scientific research fields to develop therapies for brain diseases."
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla
Is epigenetics the base for a bunch of research fields?
METP: Epigenetics can truly link together a lot of the different scientific research fields, from metabolic deregulation to our interactions with the environment but also to develop cell-based therapies.
With Epigenetics@HelmholtzMunich we gather the expertise of various disciplines and topics. Scientists in the field of epigenetics have a common language: We can talk to colleagues of other disciplines and research fields, regardless of whether they study in the field of lung diseases like COPD or diabetes on reprograming beta cells. Epigenetics is the research that can explain why we are how we are, and help to cure diseases based on cell disfunction and cell loss.
Epigenetics@HelmholtzMunich
The researchers join forces to reveal the myriad secrets of Epigenetics: Have a look at the research groups involved in this project: https://www.helmholtz-munich.de/en/epigenetics
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla about Helmholtz Munich as a place where basic research and clinically applied research work hand in hand.
Latest update: February 2024.
Find Out More About Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla and Connected Research
Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla is the Director of the Stem Cell Center (rotating), Director of the Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells, Director of Biomedicine at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus, Chair of Stem Cell Biology, Faculty of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU).
Contact: torres-padilla@helmholtz-muenchen.de Profile: Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla
About Her Research:
- Understanding Embryonic Development
- Epigenetics and Cell-Fate in Early Mammalian Development
- Epigenetics and Stem Cells
- Epigenetics@HelmholtzMunich
- Maintaining and Reprogramming Cell Fates
- Cells of the Future: A Key To Reprogramming Cell Identities
- Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla is elected new member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
- Developmental Heterochromatin Formation Is Accompanied by Changes in Biophysical Properties
- A Speed Limit Could Be a Breakthrough for Stem Cell Therapy
- Helmholtz Pioneer Campus