Ji-Yeon Shin, PhD

The long-term research goal of the Shin lab is to understand the cellular roles of nuclear envelope proteins in development, metabolism and tumorigenesis. The lab aims to translate the acquired knowledge into developing therapeutic approaches for various human diseases linked to nuclear envelope protein dysfunction. To accomplish this goal, the lab has been employing various methods including cell biology, biochemistry, mouse genetics, stem cell biology and multi-omics approaches.

One of the research directions is to delineate the roles of a nuclear envelope protein complex in hepatic steatosis and neoplasia. In a collaborative effort, the group discovered that the nuclear envelope localized LAP1-torsinA complex is responsible for hepatic lipid homeostasis whose abnormality is linked to steatotic liver diseases including steatohepatitis development (Shin et al. JCI, 2019). The current research focus is to investigate the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms using mouse models in which LAP1 or torsinA is depleted from hepatocytes and isolated primary hepatocytes. The lab is developing engineered iPSC-derived hepatocytes to further study cellular mechanisms of lipid regulation by nuclear envelope proteins in human cells.