[Jan. 26] 133rd IRCMS Seminar

January 7 2026

We would like to inform you that the 133rd IRCMS seminar has been scheduled as below.
* This IRCMS seminar is open to everyone.

Date      : January 26, 2026 (Monday)

Time      : 16:00-17:00

ZOOM　: Meeting ID: 987 2963 7339

　　　　Passcode:  Sem26Jan

Speaker : Dr. Mu He (The University of Hong Kong)

Title        : From form to function: Reconstituting a complex respiratory mucosal barrier

Abstract:

The human respiratory mucosal barrier is a vital interface protecting internal organs from environmental insults. During embryogenesis, the human lung develops through multiple branching events, resulting in the formation of respiratory bronchioles that are markedly different from those in rodent models. These distal regions are susceptible to diseases such as congenital pulmonary airway malformation (CPAM) and COPD. However, most prevailing organoid models lack this specialized distal architecture, limiting their utility for studying human pulmonary pathophysiology. In this talk, I will introduce a comprehensive human airway organoid model that recapitulates the distal airway cellular landscape, including all epithelial cell types as well as pulmonary fibroblasts. This model enables detailed analysis of cellular heterogeneity and inflammatory responses relevant to congenital and chronic pulmonary diseases. Motile ciliated cells are one of the major cell types of the respiratory mucosal barrier. Mutations affect motile cilia assembly and function lead to human genetic disorders, collectively called Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia. I will discuss our recent findings in a cytoskeleton scaffold in regulating motile cilia formation and suggest a previously uncharacterized cilia assembly pathway shared from mice to humans.

Major papers:

1. Park H, Choi M, Cheung H, Zhang Y, Makino S, Yoshikawa Y, Qi H, Liu Z, Lan G, Fu, G, Wang Q, Guo S, Liu P, Liu Z, Ti S, Wang W, Li X, Ni T, Hui, C, He M*. The kinesin-4 protein KIF27 forms a cytoskeletal scaffold at the transition zone to promote motile cilia structural integrity, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2025, doi/10.1073/pnas.2515392122

2. Ramirez-San Juan GR, Mathijssen AJTH, He M, Jan L, Marshall W, Prakash M. Multi-scale spatial heterogeneity enhances particle clearance in airway ciliary arrays. Nature Physics 2020; 16:958-64

3. He M#*, Wu B#, Le DD, Ye W, Sinclair AW, Padovano V, Chen Y, Li K, Sit R, Tan M, Caplan MJ, Neff N, Jan YN, Darmanis S*, Jan LY*. Single cell RNAseq reveals a critical role of chloride channels in airway development. eLife 2020; 9:e53085 PMID: 32286221, Co-first & Co-corresponding author