About Our Lab

The Habib Lab works at the intersection of stem cell biology, biophysics, and tissue engineering to investigate how tissues form. We use this knowledge to develop technologies for tissue repair.

Wnt proteins, often secreted locally, are required for self-renewal in many types of stem cells. Shukry pioneered a technology to immobilise hydrophobic Wnts to synthetic surfaces (Science 2013, Nature Protocols 2017), thereby allowing Wnts to be spatially targeted to cells and tissues. Shukry demonstrated how localised and directional Wnts affect mammalian stem cells by inducing asymmetric stem cell division (Science 2013), an essential process for tissue formation.

His lab has shown that Wnt-platforms can select for and self-renew Wnt-responsive stem cells (Stem Cell Reports 2016). Using this, they engineered the Wnt-induced osteogenic tissue Model (WIOTM), which maintains human skeletal stem cells (hSSCs) and a cascade of osteogenic differentiating cells, a process driven by asymmetric cell division. This system is ideal for modelling human bone diseases and drug screening.

Human mesenchymal stem cells in culture (left) and a schematic of the immobilised Wnt3a (blue/red) directing asymmetric cell division to form the WIOTM

Importantly, the lab has also engineered a novel Wnt-bandage and formed the WIOTM on it (WIOTM-bandage). Wnt-bandage treatment doubles bone repair in critical-sized bone defects that cannot heal by themselves; the WIOTM-bandage triples bone repair. Importantly, hSSCs are maintained in vivo and uniquely generate human mature bone cells (Nature Materials 2021). This work has resulted in a patent, interest from orthopaedic surgeons for clinical trials, and over 107 news articles, including televised coverage by CBS news.

Our pipeline for skeletal stem cell technology and bone repair.

The immobilised Wnt3a directs regeneration.

The Habib lab studies mechanisms of stem cell self-organisation to generate 3D tissues. They identified specialized cytonemes that “seek” self-renewal-promoting Wnt-ligands and pair with niche Wnt-producing cells to initiate morphogenesis. They discovered a unique glutamate-Wnt receptor cross-talk during Wnt recruitment as a mechanism of cytoneme selectivity (PNAS 2020), which they further characterised using statistical mechanics (Physical ReviewX 2020). The Habib lab highlighted roles of Wnt-signalling components and Glutamate receptors, in cytoneme formation, Wnt-interaction and Wnt-mediated asymmetric stem cell division (e-Life 2021 & JCB 2021), alongside discovering asymmetric inheritance of histones (Cell Reports 2020, STAR Prot. 2020).

In summary the Habib lab, in collaboration with international labs, ventures into new areas of science, resulting in novel technologies for growth and repair of adult tissues and insights into early embryogenesis.

NanoLive imaging (above) and schematic representation (below) of Wnt3a bead-induced cell division

Meet The Team

Shukry James Habib pursued his undergraduate studies in biology at the Technion in Israel. He received his Master’s degree in Biochemistry from Tel Aviv University in Israel under the supervision of Prof. Abdussalam Azem. Shukry completed his graduate doctorate studies (Dr. rer. nat) in Biochemistry under the supervision of Prof. Walter Neupert and Prof. Doron Rapaport at the Institute of Physiological Chemistry, LMU in Munich, Germany. His graduate studies focused on the biogenesis of mitochondrial membrane proteins. Shukry became a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Roel Nusse at Stanford University, California. There, incorporating advanced imaging techniques and bioengineering, he established a novel system to study asymmetric cell division of mammalian stem cells. During this project, Shukry joined the Janelia (HHMI) visitor program and worked together with the group of the Nobel prize laureate Dr. Eric Betzig to visualize cell division at super-resolution under real time. In 2014, Shukry started his own lab at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at King's college London. Shukry is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Shukry has received numerous awards and honors including: Minerva fellowship (Max-Plank Society), EMBO fellowship, DFG fellowship and Siebel scholar. He was also awarded the Sir Henry Dale fellowship (Wellcome Trust and Royal Society, UK), one of the most prestigious awards for young investigators.

Pierre Tournier earned his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Grenoble Alpes (UGA) after completing an oncology internship (IAB, UGA). He earned his master's degree in tissue engineering, cell and gene therapy at UGA after internships in renal ischemic lesions (BIOTIS, University of Bordeaux) and hepatic cell therapy (CR2TI, University of Nantes). During his PhD, Pierre collaborated with Biobank (France) and the RMeS Lab (University of Nantes) to characterise bone healing with a partially demineralised extrudable bone graft. He then became a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nantes and worked on 3D bioprinting using a dynamic hyaluronan-based hydrogel composed of reversible boronate ester bonds. Pierre joined the Habib laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow to work on new models of bone healing using Wnt bandage technology.

Pierre Becquart earned a bachelor's degree in genetics and developmental biology, followed by a master's in cell biology and infectiology, both from Claude Bernard University in Lyon, France. During his master's program, he interned at BIOMATECH, where he implemented new bone embedding methods and immunostaining protocols. After graduation, he joined the B3OA Laboratory in Paris as a research assistant, focusing on the use of mesenchymal stem cells and biomaterials to improve bone healing. He then moved to Canada and worked as a lab manager at the Quandt Neuroinflammation Laboratory at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he was involved in various projects studying multiple sclerosis. Currently, Pierre is a laboratory manager at the Habib Laboratory, where he investigates the epigenetic events involved in the asymmetric cell division of human skeletal stem cells..

Tamara Déglise completed her training in an Angiology laboratory at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) from 2018 to 2020. During her CFC, she studied the effect of BNP after myocardial infarction. In 2022, she joined Prof. Fanny Langlet’s lab in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Lausanne as a lab technician. She worked on signals involved in tanycyte-neuron communication for the regulation of energy balance. Tamara is currently a lab technician in the Habib lab, where she investigates the epigenetic events involved in the asymmetric cell division of human skeletal stem cells.

Sundos Abu Sanad obtained her bachelor's degree in biotechnology and genetic engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology in 2023. She undertook her first internship at the University of Tokyo in computational biology, supervised by Prof. Martin Frith, in 2021. The following year, she joined the laboratory of biomaterials for immunoengineering under the supervision of Prof. Li Tang's lab at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where she contributed to a project focused on the mechanosensing mechanisms of immune cells in cancer. Additionally, she completed a fellowship in Advanced Data Analytics with Correlation One after her graduation. Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree in medical biology, specializing in immunology and cancer, at the University of Lausanne, while working on her master's thesis in tissue engineering for bone regeneration at the Habib lab.

Jilian Lamprecht obtained in 2022 his Bsc in Life Sciences Engineering from EPFL, where he is now completing his Master spec. Molecular Health with a more pronounced interest towards immunology and cancer biology. His bachelor project at Lingner Lab (EPFL) had him involved in the design and development of a novel protein-protein interaction assay of telomere and shelterin components. After an internship at Readily3D, he learned the basics of biomaterials and further developed his skillset by notably designing 3D models and refining bioprinting protocols. Currently, Jilian is working on his Master’s thesis at Habib lab, where he studies the relationship between epigenetic modifications and osteogenesis.

We are hiring

Open positions for motivated PhD students, Technicians and Postdocs.