Mori Lab: Laboratory for
Respiratory Health and Respiratory Organ Generation
Exploring the Future of Respiratory Health and Respiratory Organ Generation Technology.
Our research focus is on understanding the fundamental cellular- and molecular mechanisms behind intra- or interspecies respiratory biology. We are seeking an innovative treatment for maintaining our respiratory health. The ultimate goal for our state-of-the-art lung generation technology is to transform care for patients with refractory lung diseases.
NEWLY ESTABLISHED MORI LAB
October 21, 2019
The lung is one of the most complex organs to regenerate. Current bioengineering technologies utilizing three-dimensional printers and decellularization-recellularization have had limited success. Recently, we established an experimental basis of lung generation in vivo (Mori et al., Nature Medicine, 2019).
We will further focus on advancing our lung generation technology for realizing in vivo disease-modeling and autologous lung transplantation in vivo.
MORI ET AL., NATURE MEDICINE, 2019, IN PRESS
November 7th, 2019
Millions of people worldwide suffering from incurable end-stage lung disease die due to inadequate treatment options and limited availability of donor organs for transplantation. Current bioengineering strategies to regenerate the lung have not been able to replicate its extraordinary complexity, which contains billions of cells indispensable for life-sustaining gas-exchange. Here we report the first experimental evidence of successful regeneration of a functional lung in vivo using a conditional blastocyst complementation (CBC) approach, coupled with a newly-established pluripotent stem cell culture condition. These results pave the way for the development of novel strategies for lung generation and disease-modeling in large animals and cell-based interventions in human conditions.
LAB MEMBERS
Our people make the Mori Lab such a unique and fulfilling place to work. We’re proud of the diversity of our staff, with each member contributing their unique skills to the projects we’re working on. Together, we’ve planned and executed some of the most innovative and cutting edge experiments. Find out more about our team members below.
MOONEY
(DR. MUNEMASA MORI)
Principal Investigator,
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Columbia Center for Human Development (CCHD),
Pulmonary Allergy & Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine,
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Humor in our life, science, and innovation. These are just a few things Mooney deserves in his lab. He has developed an experimental basis for functional lung generation in mice. He is advancing his technology towards human lung generation and in vivo disease-modeling with his lab mates.
ROSE
(ROSE GORDON-SCHNEIDER)
Lab tech
Rose came from New Zealand and join Dr. Mori's lab. Her passion for science and dedication to helping lab mates are essential for the realization of our difficult mission. Professionalism to a tee and her organization into Mori Lab,
ANRI
(DR. ANRI SAWADA)
Post-Doc
Anri is a new postdoc In Dr. Mori's lab and has a mind teeming with innovative ideas and outside-the-box solutions. He is a medical doctor (MD) and his specialty is in nephrology and pathology. He is going to study the regulatory mechanism controlling lung generation in our organ generation system.
Get in touch with our lab members today.
RESEARCH
Unlocking the Mysteries of respiratory organ generation
We are interested in studying the complex organogenesis program in mammalian embryogenesis.
Our long-term goal is to identify and characterize the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying human lung generation in vivo to realizing autologous lung transplantation and disease-modeling in vivo for patients suffering from refractory lung diseases.
See below our unique approaches for analyzing respiratory organ generation.
Building a novel paradigm for complex organ formation by genome manipulation

Discover cellular and molecular functions and control them in regenerated tissues
Unveiling hidden cellular and molecular mechanisms governing intercellular function by real-time time-lapse imaging and genome-wide single-cell level analyses



Exploring molecular features of pluripotent stem cells and
the host organogenesis program, applicable for respiratory organ generation
Want to learn more about our research projects?
Visualizing invisible cellular or intracellular microorganisms in regenerated organs by
3D-SIM IMAGING

The Fruits of Our Labor
Expect the unexpected in research. Each project the Mori Lab works on comes with both unforeseeable challenges and opportunities. Many of the papers we’ve published were born out of a passion for science, Experiments are performed on the fly or purely for curiosity's sake. Check out the research projects and list of our lab’s publications below, and you are welcome to contact us for more information.