Bio-X Affiliated Faculty

Dr. Huang'’s laboratory aims to understand the chemical and mechanical interactions between extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins and pluripotent stem cells that regulate vascular and myogenic differentiation. The fundamental insights of cell-matrix interactions are applied towards stem cell-based therapies with respect to improving cell survival and regenerative capacity, as well as engineered vascularized tissues for therapeutic implantation. Current projects focus on the role of naturally-derived ECMs to enhance endothelial differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells on two-dimensional ECM microarrays of varying substrate rigidity. The knowledge gained from understanding cell-ECM interactions are applied towards engineering prevascularized skeletal or cardiac muscle constructs using nanotopographical cues derived from nanofibrillar ECMs.