Roser Vento-Tormo's interest is in decoding the principles of tissue organisation by developing and integrating tools in spatial genomics, artificial intelligence and gene editing to make tissue biology quantifiable and predictable. She is fascinated by how hormones shape cellular and tissue physiology both in female reproductive organs and other systems.

After completing her PhD at the University of Barcelona, Roser joined the Wellcome Sanger Institute as an EMBO/HFSP postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Sarah Teichmann. In 2019 she started her own group at the Sanger, dissecting the physiology of the poorly understood reproductive tissues across the lifespan. The cellular atlases of the female reproductive tissues generated by her team and released through the Human Cell Atlas are now widely across the field and have underpinned a series of fundamental discoveries. Roser's team identified previously unknown progenitors in reproductive tissues, including two epithelial progenitors that act in coordination to heal the endometrium (the mucosal lining of the uterus) after menstruation. Her team also showed that immune cells actively shape reproductive tissues and contribute to their regeneration, rather than acting as simple guardians

Central to these discoveries are the tools that the lab builds. A key innovation has been the use of cellular atlases as blueprints for engineering in vitro models: Roser's team was the first to establish a robust, feeder-free protocol for deriving human B cell progenitors (the cells that produce antibodies) from human induced pluripotent stem cells. B cells are essential to tissue physiology and play a central role in reproductive and inflammatory conditions.

With these tools in hand and with spatial multimodal measurement and AI advancing rapidly, Roser is excited about what now comes into reach: multi-scale, context-resolved causal models of human tissues, and with them a mechanistic basis for diagnosing and treating disease.

Orchid number:  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9870-8474
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roser-vento-tormo-66013bbb/
Website: https://www.sanger.ac.uk/person/vento-tormo-roser/

Roser Vento-Tormo team study the principles of tissue organisation. By developing and integrating cutting-edge spatial genomics, artificial intelligence and gene editing tools, Roser’s team build reference maps that reveal how changes in DNA and in the environment reshape the cellular circuits underlying phenotype. Tissues are where cells do their work, and where disease begins and progresses, so the quantitative data they generate offer a route to better treatments. Understanding tissue physiology also lets them design in vitro models that recapitulate disease in a dish.

As part of the AITHYRA Adjunct PI agreement, Roser Vento-Tormo aims to work closely with PIs Xinyi Zhang and Alexander Tong to develop and apply generative models for tissue biology, incorporating features such as 2D-to-3D inference, spatial perturbation prediction, and novel molecule design to induce targeted, tissue-level changes.

Publication Highlights

Spatiotemporal cellular map of the developing human reproductive tract. Lorenzi V, Icoresi-Mazzeo C, Cassie C, Yayon N, Ruiz-Morales ER, Sancho-Serra C, Colligan R, Wong FCK, Marečková M, Tuck E, Roberts K, Li T, Jacques MA, Ashcroft J, He X, Crespo B, Cakir B, Murray S, Gu Y, Predeus AV, Prete M, Kelava I, Barker R, Garcia-Alonso L, Marioni JC, Vento-Tormo R. Nature. 2026 Feb;650(8101):428-437. doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-09875-2. 

An integrated single-cell reference atlas of the human endometrium. Marečková M, Garcia-Alonso L, Moullet M, Lorenzi V, Petryszak R, Sancho-Serra C, Oszlanczi A, Icoresi Mazzeo C, Wong FCK, Kelava I, Hoffman S, Krassowski M, Garbutt K, Gaitskell K, Yancheva S, Woon EV, Male V, Granne I, Hellner K, Mahbubani KT, Saeb-Parsy K, Lotfollahi M, Prigmore E, Southcombe J, Dragovic RA, Becker CM, Zondervan KT, Vento-Tormo R. Nat Genet. 2024 Sep;56(9):1925-1937. doi: 10.1038/s41588-024-01873-w.

Spatial multiomics map of trophoblast development in early pregnancy. Arutyunyan A, Roberts K, Troulé K, Wong FCK, Sheridan MA, Kats I, Garcia-Alonso L, Velten B, Hoo R, Ruiz-Morales ER, Sancho-Serra C, Shilts J, Handfield LF, Marconato L, Tuck E, Gardner L, Mazzeo CI, Li Q, Kelava I, Wright GJ, Prigmore E, Teichmann SA, Bayraktar OA, Moffett A, Stegle O, Turco MY, Vento-Tormo R. Nature. 2023 Apr;616(7955):143-151. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05869-0.