Dr Marco Pellegrini is a Research Associate and NIHR GOSH BRC Fellow at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, whose work spans stem cell biology, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering. He leads the NIHR GOSH BRC iPSC Reprogramming Resource, generating iPSC lines from patients with rare genetic diseases to support paediatric research.

After earning a PhD in Biology Applied to Human Health from the University of Roma Tre, he completed postdoctoral training at the University of Padua, where he developed human naïve iPSC generation in microfluidic systems and identified the pluripotency regulator ZNF398.

At UCL, in Prof Paolo De Coppi's group, his research focuses on tissue-engineered organs for paediatric congenital disorders. He led the team that achieved the first functional integration of a circumferential tissue-engineered oesophagus in a large-animal model. The study, published in Nature Biotechnology, demonstrated restoration of muscle function and peristalsis, a landmark result in the field.