Agathe Chaigne
Assistant Professor at Utrecht University
Agathe Chaigne studied cell biology and developmental biology in Ecole Normale Supérieure and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, France. She obtained a teaching degree in 2010, her masters in 2011 and her PhD in 2014 studying the role of cortex tension in spindle positioning of the mouse oocyte, under the supervision of Marie-Hélène Verlhac and Marie-Emilie Terret. She did her postdoc in the lab of Ewa Paluch in University College London and Cambridge University, in collaboration with Kevin Chalut and Edouard Hannezo as an EMBO fellow then a sir Henry Wellcome postdoctoral fellow. During that time, she investigated the role of cell division in cell fate transitions using mouse embryonic stem cells as a model system. Since 2022, Agathe has led her own laboratory in the Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Biophysics at Utrecht University, where her research explores the mechanics and dynamics of cell division. Her work has been recognized with an NWO Vidi grant (2022), the FEBS Excellence Award (2023), an ERC Starting Grant (2024), and an HFSP Program Grant (2025).