About
Carla Mulas
Outside the lab: I grew up across countries. I was born in Italy and lived in a tiny village in Argentina for 10 years. I then moved back to Italy for 2 years, before moving to Hong Kong, where I finished high school. I grew up in the mountains so I'm a very keen skiier. The rest of the time, I am either playing squash, doing a bit of cycling or enjoying a pint or a glass of wine.
In the lab: I studied Biochemistry at Imperial College London, UK. Through summer internships, I became fascinated with understanding how cells from the mammalian epiblast can give rise to the myriad of cell types that form an adult organism. I started my PhD with Austin Smith at the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Cambridge investigating cell fate choice using mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells as a model system. I was particularly interested in the functional properties of cells, i.e. what cells can and cannot do at different stages, or how they respond to chemical signals. My project raised several questions about embryonic development in vivo. Therefore I joined the lab of Jenny Nichols, also at the Stem Cell Institute, to investigate the role of the transcription factor Oct4 during cell fate decisions and gastrulation. I was also able to contribute to efforts to generate a transcriptional map of early peri- and post-implantation mouse development using single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq).
As part of my postdoctoral work, I started using interdisciplinary strategies to combine functional and molecular single-cell assays. Working alongside Kevin Chalut, I investigated whether we can identify molecular signatures of cell state transitions in single-cell RNA sequencing datasets. More information on these projects can be found here.
In October 2021 I started as a King's Prize Fellow at the Randall Centre for Cell and Molecular Biophysics at King's College London.
Contacts:
mulascarla [at] gmail.com
carla.mulas[at]kcl.ac.uk