Tae-Hee Kim
Profile: Scientist, SickKids Research Institute
Department: Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto
Research Interests:
Our laboratory is interested in two fundamentally important questions: how essential organs and cell types are generated from stem cells to function over a lifetime, and how normal stem cell homeostasis is disrupted in disease, such as inflammation and cancer. Since the gut epithelium rapidly self-renews and is a target of deadly cancer, it is a perfect model system to study developmental basis of stem cell mechanisms. By applying the combined approaches of mouse genetics, epigenomics, and stem cell organoid cultures, we investigate signaling, transcriptional, and chromatin mechanisms of stomach and intestinal stem cell renewal and differentiation. We hope that understanding these mechanisms will facilitate the development of novel therapeutic strategies for IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), lethal digestive cancers, and regenerative medicine. Lab website http://lab.research.sickkids.ca/kim/