Bruno Reversade

Bruno Reversade (born 1978) is an American developmental biologist and human geneticist. He is a Director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Genome Institute of Singapore at A*STAR (Singapore) and holds several faculty positions at other universities. Reversade is known for identifying mutated genes that cause Mendelian diseases in humans and for his research on the genetics of identical twins.
Early life and education.
Bruno Reversade was born in 1978 into a French-American family. He was raised in Grenoble (France) and Washington, D.C. (US). Bruno Reversade studied at the University Joseph Fourier, Pierre and Marie Curie University and UCLA.
Scientific career.
Reversade became interested in developmental biology in 1997 when studying at the University of Western Ontario (Canada) under the tutelage of Greg Kelly.
He earned his master's degree at the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France), where he studied head development in the mouse embryo. He then moved to the United States to work at the HHMI laboratory of Edward M. De Robertis at the University of California, Los Angeles. There he studied the specification of the dorsal-ventral axis during vertebrate development using Xenopus embryos. In 2005, Reversade and De Robertis detailed how multiple extracellular proteins allow embryos that are cut in two to self-regulate consistently.
In 2006, Reversade earned his PhD from the Pierre and Marie Curie University. In 2008, he received the A*STAR investigatorship (Singapore) award and set up his team in 2008 at the Institute of Medical Biology to carry out human embryology and genetic research. In 2015, he became a Director at A*STAR. Also in 2015, he received AAA Fellowship from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and was appointed Professor of Human Genetics at the Centre for Reproductive Medicine at the University's Academic Medical Center. Since 2016, Reversade is a Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics at Koç University (Turkey).
Research areas.
Mendelian genetics.
His laboratory works on the genetic characterization and clinical description of inherited conditions in humans. Reversade has identified mutations responsible for progeroid syndromes in humans, NLRP1 inflammasome-related diseases, and self-healing cancers. Reversade's team has identified the following mutated genes to be responsible for novel Mendelian diseases:
Developmental biology and identical twinning.
Reversade's investigations in developmental biology have relied on various animal model organisms ("C. elegans", "Drosophila", zebrafish, "Xenopus" and transgenic mice) and 
covered such embryonic processes as neural induction, limb development, and various human diseases causing birth defects.
In 2005, during his Ph.D. thesis in the laboratory of Edward De Robertis, the scientists published two discoveries, pertaining to the self-regulation of an embryonic morphogenetic field mediated by the extracellular Chordin/BMP/Sizzled pathway. This helped provide a molecular framework for how embryos split in two halves can develop into perfect, albeit smaller, identical twinned embryos.
Reversade also researches the genetics of dizygotic and monozygotic twinning in humans. He has been searching for genes responsible for monozygotic twinning from rare population isolates.
Micropeptides.
Reversade's research is also focused on the annotation of novel micropeptides. In 2013, he discovered and patented a novel hormone named Elabela (ELA). This secreted circulating peptide works as an endogenous ligand for the Apelin receptor (a G protein-coupled receptor). The genetic inactivation of ELA leads to cardiovascular defects, predisposes to preeclampsia and is needed for the self-renewal of human embryonic stem cells.