Ritu Nayak

Hello everyone! I'm Ritu Nayak from Odisha, India. Right now, I'm working as a postdoc at Prof. Shahragim Tajbakhsh's laboratory in Institute Pasteur, France. I am working on craniofacial development, specifically studying how our facial structures form during early human development using human iPSC-derived gastruloid models. I just finished my PhD journey at the University of Haifa, Israel (2020-2024), where I spent four incredible years diving into the world of neurological disorders using human iPSCs. During my PhD, I created disease models in the lab to understand what goes wrong in various neurological conditions, essentially building mini-brain systems that could help us decode complex disorders. Now I'm exploring this exciting transition from neuroscience to developmental biology, and I'm absolutely thrilled to connect with the Indian Society of Developmental Biologists.