Laboratory of Hepatocyte Regulation

1. Members

Project leader	Hiroyuki Mizuguchi
Collaborating researchers	Yukiko Ueyama-Toba, Fuminori Sakurai, and others
Research trainee	a few people

2. Background and Objectives

Our laboratory researches on the stem-cell biological studies for drug screening and regenerative medicine.

3. Overview of our research

I. Differentiation and maturation of hepatocytes and enterocytes derived from human iPS cells through organoid technology

In vitro model having the functions of liver and small intestine is expected to reproduce the drug's ADMETox properties. The development of cellular model, such as human hepatocytes and enterocytes, is required for this purpose. Use of regenerative medicine-related techniques such as iPS cells and organoids is expected to generate such models. We develop the efficient methods for generating hepatocyte-like cells and enterocyte-like cells from human iPS cells through the organoid technology and apply these cells for pharmaceutical studies. Our research will contribute not only to produce the hepatocytes and enterocytes suitable for the in vitro studies, but also to dramatically improve drug discovery process.