The Loh Laboratory employs stem cells to reconstitute and understand human developmental biology. By applying our knowledge of development, we intend to generate pure populations of desired human tissue progenitors and create a platform for stem cell-driven regenerative medicine.
Embryonic stem cells have been touted for their therapeutic value for years, but their potential for regenerative medicine has yet to be fully realized. To the present day, there have been difficulties in precisely guiding embryonic stem cells to differentiate into desired human cell-types in a dish.
To meet this challenge, we have delineated a comprehensive roadmap that describes how embryonic stem cells can develop into a broad spectrum of different human cell-types through a sequence of pairwise lineage choices. This roadmap has enabled the production of nearly-pure populations of human tissue progenitors, providing new opportunities for regenerative medicine and to interrogate early human tissue development. As for the latter, we are interested in understanding the molecular basis of multilineage competence and defining stepwise molecular changes during cell-fate transitions.
