Developmental Biology Program

The Danwei Huangfu Lab

Research

Danwei Huangfu, PhD

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] (first author(s) from the Huangfu lab are shown in bold)

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

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

huangfud@mskcc.org: Email Address
Download CV: PDF File

Members

Julian Pulecio

Sr. Research Scientist

Dapeng Yang

Sr. Research Scientist

Xian Zhang

Sr. Research Scientist

Adonis C. John

Lead, Research Administrative Assistant

Tamara Casteels

Research Fellow - NYSTEM Training Award at the CSCB

Tingfeng Guo

Research Fellow

Nan Hu

Computational Biologist

Dingyu Liu

Graduate Research Assistant

Pallavi Mohapatra

Research Fellow

Denis Torre

Research Scholar

Xianming Wang

Research Fellow

Breanna Williams

Research Technician

Nan Zhang

Research Associate

Jiahui Hazel Zhao

Graduate Research Assistant

Inbal Caspi

Graduate Research Assistant

Gary Dixon

Graduate Research Assistant

Kihyun Lee

Graduate Research Assistant

Tracey Leonardo

Research Technician

Qing Li

Scientist II, Tessera Therapeutics

Renhe Luo

Lead Scientist, Spark, New York, NY

Robert Rickert

Research Technician

Bess Rosen

Graduate Research Assistant

Abhijit Shukla

Research Fellow

Chew-Li Soh

Research Fellow

Virginia Teijeiro

Graduate Research Assistant

Nipun Verma

Graduate Research Assistant

Daniela C. Georgieva

Research Technician

Federico Gonzalez-Grassi

Research Fellow

Katherine Lelli

Research Fellow

Zhong-Dong Shi

Research Fellow

Zengrong Zhu

Research Associate

Sharon Adeniyi

Research Technician

Georgina Berrozpe

Senior Research Scientist

Chia Chan

Lab Manager

Hyein Cho

Sr. Computational Biologist

Jeyaram Ravichandran Damodaran

Sr. Research Technician

Hanuman Kale

Research Scholar

Sricharan Kannan

Research Technician

Samuel Kaplan

Graduate Research Assistant

Laura Pereira

Scientific Research Lead

Arushi Rana

Research Technician

Jielin Yan

Research Scholar

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

Denis Torre - Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellowship (2025)
Tamara Casteels - Emerald Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2025)
Pallavi Mohapatra - Kaufman Family Postdoctoral Fellowship in Pediatric Cancer (2025)
Renhe Luo - GSK Chairman’s Prize (2024)
Julian Pulecio - 2023 cohort of MERIT Emerging Leaders
Dingyu Liu - Bruce Charles Forbes Fellowship (2023)
Tamara Casteels - NYSTEM Training Award at the CSCB (2022)
Tamara Casteels - Award of Excellence for her PhD thesis with Stefan Kubicek in CeMM (2022)
Nan Zhang - CDMRP PRMRP Discovery Award (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

huangfud@mskcc.org

Lab Head Email
212-639-5240

Lab Phone

Disclosures

Members of the MSK Community 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. These activities outside of MSK further our mission, provide productive collaborations, and promote the practical application of scientific discoveries.

MSK requires doctors, faculty members, and leaders 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. Not all disclosed interests and relationships present conflicts of interest. MSK reviews all disclosed interests and relationships to assess whether a conflict of interest exists and whether formal COI management is needed.

Danwei Huangfu discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

Breakthrough T1D
Professional Services and Activities

Stem Cell Reports
Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)

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, 2024 through disclosure submission in spring 2025). 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 ecoi@mskcc.org.

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