Advancements in Genetic Engineering
Open Access

In Hyun Park

Biography

Dr. Park received his B.S and M.S. from Seoul National University at Korea, and Ph. D from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the field of Cell and Structural Biology. During his Ph.D training, he studied mTOR pathways regulating cell growth, and myogenic differentiation. He continued his research as a Post-doc fellow in Dr. George Daley’s lab in Harvard Medical School, where he isolated one of the first human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and investigated the epigenetic change during reprogramming process. He is now an Assistant Professor of Genetics and Yale Stem Cell Center at Yale University.

Research Interest

Human body is composed of a variety of cell types with different functions. All of these cells, however, have the same genetic materials. Depending on actively expressed genes, cells acquire their fate in the developmental process. Forced expression of a given sets of genes reprogram cells to become the cell type of interest. Dr. Park have shown that the overexpression of genes important for pluripotent stem cells convert somatic cells to become induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that have similar features of embryonic stem cells. The iPS cells provide unprecedented resources for cell replacement therapy and for developing platforms for drug discovery. Dr. Park’s lab investigates the molecular and epigenetic mechanism of reprogramming and the utility of iPS cells for human diseases.