Heidar Heidari Khoei, postdoctoral researcher in Nicolas Rivron’s lab at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), was awarded an ESPRIT postdoctoral fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The highly competitive fellowship supports the professional development of promising early-career researchers in Austrian institutions.
The funding will support Heidari Khoei’s research on how the right balance of early cell types is established during the first stages of human embryonic development. The earliest weeks of life are critical for a successful pregnancy—at this stage, the embryo forms distinct cell types that give rise to both the fetus and the placenta. These different cell types must appear in the right numbers and work together to ensure proper organization, size, and patterning. Despite their importance, the biological principles that control how this balance is achieved and maintained remain largely unknown—especially in humans, where access to early-stage embryos is limited.
To address this, Heidari Khoei uses human blastoids—stem cell-based models that mimic key features of early embryogenesis and were developed in the Rivron lab at IMBA. These models offer a powerful and ethical platform to study early development. Heidari Khoei will study gene activity at the single-cell level to understand how different cell types emerge and function within the blastoid. He will also investigate how these cells communicate and regulate their metabolism, taking a systems-level approach to discover how cell behaviors are coordinated and balanced during the earliest stages of human development.
“My project aims to reveal the mechanisms that ensure proper lineage specification in the human embryo,” says Heidari Khoei. “The results could help explain why most human embryos fail to develop successfully—a major issue limiting human fertility—and pave the way for improvements in reproductive medicine. I’m really thankful to the FWF for recognizing and supporting my work—it’s a great opportunity to keep pushing this research forward at IMBA.”
Heidar Heidari Khoei earned his PhD in human reproductive biology at the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Iran, where he studied the biology of the endometrium, the inner lining of the uterus, using stem cell and organoid models. He also worked as a clinical embryologist in IVF clinics between 2015 and 2019, gaining hands-on experience with human gametes and embryos. Since 2020, Heidari is a postdoctoral researcher in the Rivron lab at IMBA, where he co-developed human blastoids. His research has been supported by the Lise Meitner Programme of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship of the European Commission.
The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) is Austria's central funding organization for basic research. The ESPRIT program (Early-Stage Program: Research - Innovation - Training) is a funding initiative by the FWF designed to support the professional development of early-career researchers. It offers postdoctoral researchers the chance to lead independent research projects across all disciplines, helping them establish their research profiles. The program provides funding for up to three years.