Research 

Cardiac Team (Heewon Hwang, Seoyoon Jang): Identification of unknown roles of epigenetic regulators during heart development using hPSC-derived cardiac organoids and CRISPR genetic screening with single cell and spatial transcriptomics. 

(Related Funding: MUSCAT: Establishment and optimization of muscle cell atlas for therapeutic applications on skeletal and cardiac diseases)

Mitochondrial Diabetes Team (Mikyoung Shim, YoonHee Kim, Nayoon Park): 

1) To identify the environmental factors, such as medications, which can induce diabetes, using small molecules screening human pluripotent stem cell-derived pancreatic differentiation. 

2) Generation of pancreatic beta cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells via CRISPR genome editing for cell therapy of diabetic patients. 

(Related Funding: Ex-vivo gene editing for mitochondrial diabetes treatment with iPSCs by advanced base editing and prime editing)

Gene Therapy Team (Chaeyeon Shin, Seoyoon Jang, Juhee Kim, Nayoon Park): Development of genetic therapy strategies for rare genetic disease patients using human pluripotent stem cells or patient-derived pancreatic organoids. 

(Related Funding: Development of an ultrasound sensitive guide RNA nanoparticle-microbubble complex gene editing delivery system for the prevention of hereditary pancreatitis)

(Related Funding: Developing a Curative Strategy for Hereditary Pancreatitis through Prime Editing-Mediated Precision Correction of Trypsin Regulatory Pathways in Patient-Derived Pancreatic Organoids)

Immune Team (Danbi Kang, Heejae Um) : Using pluripotent stem cells as a resource for immune cell therapy has been a huge attention; however, the differentiation to generate functional immune cells from pluripotent stem cells has not been successful due to several molecular bottlenecks. To establish more efficient differentiation platform, we will use CRISPR genetic screening to elucidate the molecular regulation during in vitro differentiation and identify the obstacles to fix. 

(Related Funding: Development of CAR-T cell therapy derived from human pluripotent stem cells)

Mandible Team (Haesong Lee, Yoon Hee Kim): Identification of unknown roles of epigenetic regulators during mandible development using hPSC-derived organoids genetic screening with single cell sequencing data. 

(Selected for the 2026 KIRD R&D Career Lab Fellowship, Future Physician-Scientist Challente Track)

Research Funding

RS-2023-00223069 MUSCAT: Establishment and optimization of muscle cell atlas for therapeutic applications on skeletal and cardiac diseases (2023-04-01~2027-12-31, Total  617,500,000 won)

RS-2023-00261247 Development of an ultrasound sensitive guide RNA nanoparticle-microbubble complex gene editing delivery system for the prevention of hereditary pancreatitis (2023-07-01~2027-12-31, Total  675,500,000 won)

RS-2024-00332601 Korean Fund for Regenerative Medicine: Ex-vivo gene editing for mitochondrial diabetes treatment with iPSCs by advanced base editing and prime editing (2024-04-01~2028-12-31, Total 712,500,000 won)

Yuhan Innovation Program Development of CAR-T cell therapy derived from human pluripotent stem cells (2024-09-01~2025-08-31, Total 100,000,000 won)

RS-2026-25502929 Developing a Curative Strategy for Hereditary Pancreatitis through Prime Editing-Mediated Precision Correction of Trypsin Regulatory Pathways in Patient-Derived Pancreatic Organoids (2026-04-01~2029-12-31, Total  718,750,000 won)