Simão T. da Rocha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Head of the Stem Cell Epigenetics Lab at the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB), Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon. His interest in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression began during his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, where he studied genomic imprinting under the supervision of Anne Ferguson-Smith. He then pursued postdoctoral research at the Institut Curie with Edith Heard, focusing on X-chromosome inactivation. In 2015, he joined Maria Carmo-Fonseca’s lab at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular as a staff scientist, working on epigenetics, stem cell biology and human disease.

Currently as a PI in iBB, his research centers on the intersection of epigenetics and stem cell biology, with three main areas of focus:

1. Mechanisms of epigenetic regulation in stem cells;

2. Safeguarding epigenetic fidelity in stem cell models;

3. Using stem cells to model epigenetically regulated diseases such as      Angelman syndrome.