Date: 21 September 2026 (Monday)
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 3, G/F, William M.W. Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road 
Host: Professor Kathryn Cheah

Dr. Chun So (Nick) joined the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing as an Assistant Investigator in 2022. Currently, he also serves as an Assistant Professor at the Tsinghua Institute of Multidisciplinary Biomedical Research and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his B.Sc. (first class honor) in Cell and Molecular Biology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2016 and his Ph.D. (summa cum laude) in Physics of Biological and Complex Systems from Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in 2019. His work on mammalian oocyte and embryo development were published on journals such as Cell (2023, 2026), Science (2019, 2022a, 2022b), Nature Biotechnology, Nature Aging, Nature Communications and Nature Protocols. His contributions to the reproductive biology field were highly recognized and awarded the HE Research Fellowship from the HE Science Foundation, Academic Rising Star Award from the Tsinghua University, DAMO Academy Young Fellowship from the Alibaba DAMO Academy, Nikon Young Scientist Award from the German Society for Cell Biology, the Otto Hahn Medal and Otto Hahn Award from the Max Planck Society.

Life begins with the fertilization of an egg by the sperm. While common model organisms such as the mice are efficient in pre-implantation development, this is not the case for primates including human. One contributing factor could be aneuploidy, which is frequently detected in arrested primate embryos. Using live-cell imaging, previously we have uncovered biophysical principles governing meiotic spindle assembly in mammalian eggs (Science 2019) and identified the molecular cause of frequent spindle assembly defects and chromosome missegregations in human eggs (Science 2022). In this seminar, I will present our latest progress on combining long-term live-cell imaging and single-embryo proteomics to elucidate the different contributions of mitotic aneuploidies and endoplasmic reticulum stress to embryonic arrest during human pre-implantation development (Cell 2026).

All are welcome.