Sigolène Meilhac

Sigolène Meilhac is a Research Director at INSERM leading the Heart Morphogenesis team jointly affiliated with the Institut Pasteur and Institut Imagine. Her research focuses on the embryological mechanisms shaping the heart, with a particular emphasis on left-right asymmetry, congenital heart defects, and cardiac growth regulation. She pioneered 3D imaging techniques like High Resolution Episcopic Microscopy (HREM) to quantify heart development dynamics.

Her work bridges fundamental research and clinical cardiology, addressing how genetic mutations (e.g., GREB1L) and signaling pathways (e.g., Nodal, Hippo) influence heart morphology. She coordinates the ICaRP cardiology network, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between clinicians and researchers. Key achievements include identifying novel mechanisms of heart looping and developing predictive computational models of asymmetric morphogenesis.

• Research Highlights:
  • Dissected spatiotemporal roles of Nodal signaling in heart asymmetry
  • Linked Fat4-Hippo pathway to heart growth regulation
  • Developed standardized imaging pipelines for laterality defects
• Team: Includes postdocs, PhD students, and clinicians (e.g., Ségolène Bernheim, Johanna Lokmer)
• Awards: 2018 Pasteur Vallery-Radot Prize for biomedical research

Her lab integrates genetics, omics, and computational modeling to advance understanding of congenital heart diseases affecting ~1% of newborns. Current projects explore how myocardial cell orientation and lineage dynamics shape functional cardiac architecture.