Career History & Research Interests

Momoko Yoshimoto received an M.D. from Mie University School of Medicine, Japan. She completed the Pediatric residency-fellowship program at Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital. She received a Ph.D. under Professor Tatsutoshi Nakahata at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. Momoko finished post-doctoral fellowship in Dr. Mervin C. Yoder Lab at Indiana University School of Medicine and was promoted to an Assistant Research Professor in 2009. Momoko was recruited to University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, USA in 2016 as an Associate Professor. She moved her lab to Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine, Kalamazoo, MI in 2023, and was promoted to Professor. Momoko has been working on the developmental hemato-lymphopoiesis in the mouse embryo and the human PSC culture system. Her lab is currently working to understand the different immunogical roles of HSC-independent and HSC-derived immune cells and to try drawing a lineage trajectory map from embryos to adults. Her lab is also using human PSCs to induce innate-like lymphocytes in various culture methods.