About
Remarkably divergent cell types form tightly embedded connections in our body, and the loss of interconnectedness at any level can lead to devastating health problems, often ending in lethal organ failure. In hepatology, my lab seeks to understand how the living system creates interconnectedness across strata, how the interconnectedness plays a role in orchestrating tissue development and maturation, and how biological alterations in interconnectedness threaten our health. To achieve these goals, my lab employs a combinatorial use of a bioengineering technologies: synthetic tissues, en masse profiling and intravital microscopy, in which genetic, transcriptional, biochemical, and behavioral states can be probed and manipulated in real-time and space. Coupled with single cell genomics technology, we will delineate the interplay of intracellular, intercellular, and extracellular programs in stereotypical hepatobiliary organogenesis and disease.
Awards
- Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise, NYC, USA (2024)
- Ig Nobel Prize for Physiology, Boston, USA (2023)
- ISSCR Outstanding Young Investigator, International Stem Cell For Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), IL, USA (2023)
- NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Bethesda (2020)
- Robertson Investigator Award, New-York Stem Cell Foundation, NY (2016)
Relevant Publications
- Saiki, N., Nio, Y., Yoneyama, Y. et al. Self-organization of sinusoidal vessels in pluripotent stem cell-derived human liver bud organoids. Nat. Biomed. Eng (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01416-6
- Kimura M., Iguchi T., Iwasawa K., Dunn A., Thompson W., Yoneyama Y., Chaturvedi P., Zhu G., Fujimoto M., Kumbaji M., Gindin Y., Chung C., Myers R.M., Subramanian M.G., Hwa V., Takebe T.* (2022). En masse organoid phenotyping informs metabolic-associated genetic susceptibility to NASH. Cell, 185(22):4216–4232.e16.
- Koike H., Iwasawa K., Ouchi R., Maezawa M., Giesbrecht K., Saiki N., R.-R., Ferguson A., Kimura M., W. Takeda, Wells J., Zorn A., Takebe T. (2019). Modeling human hepato-biliary-pancreatic organogenesis from the foregut–midgut boundary. Nature, 574(7776):112–116.