Welcome to the Ang Lab

Our Research

Blood vessels are of paramount importance to life as they transport nutrients and oxygen to organs, performing a critical role as the superhighway of the body. Blood vessels are lined by endothelial cells which act as barriers regulating exchanges between vessel lumens and surrounding tissues. A large supply of human endothelial cells would drive diverse applications, such as modeling of cardiovascular diseases and vascularizing organoids or tissues for regenerative medicine. Our goal is to generate pure populations of human artery and vein endothelial cells from embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells.

Liver failure is the 12th leading cause of death in the U.S. Our goal is to generate pure populations of human liver cells from embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, thereby providing a source of liver cells for transplantation into patients-in-need. We have shown that embryonic stem cell-derived human liver progenitors can engraft the injured mouse liver, regenerate human liver tissue in vivo, and partially improve survival.

Recent Papers

Generating human artery and vein cells from pluripotent stem cells reveals the arterial tropism of Nipah and Hendra viruses Ang LT, Nguyen A, Liu KJ et al. (2022). Cell 2022

Controversies Surrounding the Origin of Hepatocytes in Adult
Livers and the in Vitro Generation or Propagation of Hepatocytes
Pek and Liu et al., 2020. Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology & Hepatology Sept 2020

A Roadmap for Human Liver Differentiation from Pluripotent Stem Cells
Ang et al., 2018. Cell Reports 22: 2190-2205.
 

Evaluating the regenerative potential and functionality of human liver cells in mice
Tan et al., 2017. Differentiation 98:25-34.