Developmental Biology Program

The Danwei Huangfu Lab

Danwei Huangfu, PhD

Professor

We apply both precision gene editing and large-scale CRISPR screening in human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) to explore mechanisms underlying human development. Specifically, we are interrogating the protein-coding regulators of pancreatic development and β cell function. The pathways that regulate these processes can be exploited for therapeutics to prevent and reverse diseases such as type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In a second, closely related area, we are developing approaches to discover developmental enhancers, and to understand the epigenetic regulation of noncoding regulatory elements with a focus on DNA methylation.

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The MSK MorPhiC project

Featured News

Finding

Researchers Gary Dixon (on TV monitor), Heng Pan, Olivier Elemento, and Danwei Huangfu in the lab

Stem Cell Research Unlocks a New Discovery about Controlling Genes

Sloan Kettering Institute scientists report new findings about a gene that helps regulate DNA methylation.

In the Lab

Scientists Use CRISPR to Learn How Cells Make Decisions

The genome-editing technique uncovered several genes previously not known to influence embryonic development.

Event

A student asks a question at last year’s "Major Trends” seminar.

A Sneak Preview of Our Annual “Major Trends” Seminar Live Webcast

Every year, MSK gives high school students and their teachers the opportunity to learn about cutting-edge biomedical research from our scientists.

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Publications Highlights

Glucose transporters are key components of the human glucostat. Caspi I, Tremmel DM, Pulecio J, Yang D, Liu D, Yan J, Odorico JS, Huangfu D. Diabetes. 2024 May 22:db230508. doi: 10.2337/db23-0508. Online ahead of print. [PMID: 38775784] (underlined are first author(s) from the Huangfu lab)

Dynamic network-guided CRISPRi screen identifies CTCF-loop-constrained nonlinear enhancer gene regulatory activity during cell state transitions. Luo R, Yan J, Oh JW, Xi W, Shigaki D, Wong W, Cho HS, Murphy D, Cutler R, Rosen BP, Pulecio J, Yang D, Glenn RA, Chen T, Li QV, Vierbuchen T, Sidoli S, Apostolou E, Huangfu D#, Beer MA#. Nat Genet. 2023 Aug;55(8):1336-1346. doi: 10.1038/s41588-023-01450-7. Epub 2023 Jul 24. [PMID: 37488417] (#co-corresponding author)

CRISPR screening uncovers a central requirement for HHEX in pancreatic lineage commitment and plasticity restriction. Yang D, Cho H, Tayyebi Z, Shukla A, Luo R, Dixon G, Ursu V, Stransky S, Tremmel DM, Sackett SD, Koche R, Kaplan SJ, Li QV, Park J, Zhu Z, Rosen BP, Pulecio J, Shi ZD, Bram Y, Schwartz RE, Odorico JS, Sidoli S, Wright CV, Leslie CS#, Huangfu D#. Nat Cell Biol. 2022 Jul;24(7):1064-1076. doi: 10.1038/s41556-022-00946-4. Epub 2022 Jul 4. [PMID: 35787684]

QSER1 protects DNA methylation valleys from de novo methylation. Dixon G, Pan H, Yang D, Rosen BP, Jashari T, Verma N, Pulecio J, Caspi I, Lee K, Stransky S, Glezer A, Liu C, Rivas M, Kumar R, Lan Y, Torregroza I, He C, Sidoli S, Evans T, Elemento O#, Huangfu D#. Science. 2021 Apr 9;372(6538):eabd0875. doi: 10.1126/science.abd0875. [PMID: 33833093]

Genome-scale screens identify JNK-JUN signaling as a barrier for pluripotency exit and endoderm differentiation. Li QV, Dixon G, Verma N, Rosen BP, Gordillo M, Luo R, Xu C, Wang Q, Soh CL, Yang D, Crespo M, Shukla A, Xiang Q, Dündar F, Zumbo P, Witkin M, Koche R, Betel D, Chen S, Massagué J, Garippa R, Evans T, Beer MA#, Huangfu D#. Nat Genet. 2019 Jun;51(6):999-1010. doi: 10.1038/s41588-019-0408-9. Epub 2019 May 20. [PMID: 31110351]

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People

Danwei Huangfu, PhD

Professor

The Huangfu laboratory uses human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) as a powerful genetic model to interrogate the transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms underlying cell fate decisions in development and disease.
PhD, Cornell University, Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences
BS, Fudan University

[email protected]: Email Address
Download CV: PDF File

Members

Adonis C. John
Lead, Research Administrative Assistant

Tamara Casteels
Research Fellow - NYSTEM Training Award at the CSCB

GSK Student — Dingyu Liu
Graduate Research Assistant

Denis Torre. PhD — Denis Torre
Research Scholar

Jiahui Hazel Zhao
Graduate Research Assistant

Lab Alumni

Tracey Leonardo

Research Technician

Qing Li, BS — Qing Li
Graduate Research Assistant

Renhe Luo
Lead Scientist, Spark, New York, NY

Abhijit Shukla

Research Fellow

Chew-Li Soh, PhD — Chew-Li Soh
Research Fellow

Virginia Teijeiro
Graduate Research Assistant

Daniela C. Georgieva
Research Technician

Federico Gonzalez-Grassi
Research Fellow

Katherine Lelli, PhD — Katherine Lelli
Research Fellow

Zengrong Zhu, PhD — Zengrong Zhu
Research Associate

Georgina Berrozpe
Senior Research Scientist

Jeyaram (Jey) Ravichandran Damodaran — Jeyaram Ravichandran Damodaran
Sr. Research Technician

Samuel Kaplan
Graduate Research Assistant

Laura Pereira

Scientific Research Lead

Lab Affiliations

Achievements

Basil O’Connor Scholar, March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation (2012-2014)
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Young Investigators Award, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (2011-2014)
Award from Harvard Catalyst & InnoCentive for the Ideation Challenge on “What Do We Not Know to Cure Type 1 Diabetes” (2010)
Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship (2006-2009)

Lab News & Events

Accolades

Team Recognitions

Renhe Luo's paper on endoderm enhancer discovery is out in Nature Genetics (2023)
Jeyaram (Jey) Ravichandran Damodaran is joining the Weill Cornell BCMB program (2023)
Julian Pulecio is selected as a member of the 2023 cohort of MERIT Emerging Leaders
Dingyu Liu receives the Bruce Charles Forbes Fellowship (2023)
Tamara Casteels receives the NYSTEM Training Award at the CSCB (2022)
Tamara Casteels receives the Award of Excellence for her PhD thesis with Stefan Kubicek in CeMM (2022)
Nan Zhang receives CDMRP PRMRP Discovery Award (2022)
Dapeng Yang's paper on HHEX and pancreas specification is out in Nature Cell Biology (2022)

Open Positions

To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center

To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs

Graduate Student, Postdoctoral Fellow, Research Technician and Project Manager

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Get in Touch

[email protected]

Lab Head Email
212-639-5240

Lab Phone

Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Danwei Huangfu discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

Gene and Genome Editing
Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF)
Professional Services and Activities

Stem Cell Reports
Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
The Jackson Laboratory
Professional Services and Activities

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2023 through disclosure submission in spring 2024). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].

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