Annual summer color picnic in Central Park as we welcome our summer students to the lab!
Woojin Han
@thewooj.bsky.social
Assoc Prof at Icahn SOM at Mount Sinai NYC 🌆 | Bioengineering & biomaterials for muscle stem cell mechanobiology, disease modeling & therapy discovery🧑🏻🔬 https://www.woojinhanresearch.com
Spent Memorial Day on the trails with the lab to recharge, enjoy good company, celebrate recent wins, and kick off the summer. Excited for the science and adventures ahead! @thelaar.bsky.social @thegaaa.bsky.social @thejooosh.bsky.social @thehaan.bsky.social @thesoor.bsky.social
Congratulations to @thesoor.bsky.social (DRS MD/PhD student) from the @thewooj.bsky.social lab, who received the NIH/NIAMS F31 Predoctoral Fellowship! 🌟
Defending PhD student, looking over their thesis: “If I knew then what I know now, I could’ve done all of this in like 9 months.” A thread about my favorite pioneering cave explorers and why I don’t think AI will ever “solve” biology.
Happy holidays from the Han Lab! Celebrating a year of small wins, big milestones, and everything in between. Grateful for this team and looking ahead to the year to come.
I am excited and honored to share my promotion to Associate Professor.
🚀 NY-CURES Launch — Championing State-Wide Investment in Science! 🚀 Our new coalition advocates for sustained public support of New York’s vibrant biomedical research ecosystem — creating cures, economic gains & strengthening communities. Sign up. Stay informed. Join the movement: www.nycures.org/
Excited to share our new publication on mRNA-lipid nanoparticles for muscle regeneration! 💪🏼 Grateful for the guidance and teamwork that brought this project to life. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
WNT7A mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles Promote Muscle Hypertrophy and Reduce Fatty Infiltration - Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering
Purpose Myosteatosis and muscle atrophy are key pathological features of skeletal muscle degeneration in chronic injuries, degenerative myopathies, and aging. While recombinant WNT7A has shown promise...
link.springer.com
Our lab’s work is now published in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE) Journal, appearing in the 2025 Young Innovators Issue. I am excited to share it! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
WNT7A mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles Promote Muscle Hypertrophy and Reduce Fatty Infiltration - Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering
Purpose Myosteatosis and muscle atrophy are key pathological features of skeletal muscle degeneration in chronic injuries, degenerative myopathies, and aging. While recombinant WNT7A has shown promise...
link.springer.com
In the Han Lab, we celebrate every win, big or small, and this season has given us plenty to appreciate. 🧵
Intramuscular adipose tissue restricts functional muscle recovery www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Intramuscular adipose tissue restricts functional muscle recovery
Norris et al. demonstrate the detrimental role of intramuscular adipose tissue (IMAT) on muscle regeneration. Following injury, IMAT inhibition enhances muscle regeneration by increasing myofiber dens...
cell.com
Considerations of working with human primary muscle cells - happy to have contributed to this important topic. Thank you Tom Francis and Steve Harridge for inviting me and Casper Soendenbroe to join you! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Insights into human muscle biology from human primary skeletal muscle cell culture - Journal of Muscle Research and Cell Motility
This review arises from the symposium held in honour of Prof Jenny Morgan at UCL in 2024 and the authors would like to acknowledge the outstanding contribution that Prof Morgan has made to the field o...
link.springer.com
Excited to announce I just posted a new preLight showcasing the work of @thegaaa.bsky.social in the lab of @thewooj.bsky.social on the effects of 3D confinement on muscle stem cell proliferation and differentiation using an asymmetric hydrogel bilayer model. Check out the post and their paper below:
3D mechanical confinement directs muscle stem cell fate and function - preLights
Choking under pressure? 3D confinement in hydrogel-based culture inhibits muscle stem cell activation and differentiation
prelights.biologists.com
Thrilled to share that our work is featured on the Back Cover of Advanced Biology! This 3D confocal image by GaYoung Park @thegaaa.bsky.social captures muscle stem cells confined between two hydrogel layers with distinct properties. Read more here: advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
#SFB2025 was an absolute blast and leaving with more energy and inspiration than I came with. Great people, cutting-edge science, and just a fantastic community. Loved meeting new folks and catching up with old friends. Photo 🧵 below 👇 1/n.
Happening Sat 8:30AM! 👇
Woojin Han@thewooj.bsky.social · last yr.🗓️ Saturday, April 12 📍8:30AM | BLVD C | Engineering Cells and Their Microenvironments SIG 1 Determining the Role of PIEZO1 in Stiffness Sensing and Regulation of Muscle Fibro-Adipogenic Progenitors 👤 Soore Oguntuyo @thesoor.bsky.social
Happening today! 👇
Woojin Han@thewooj.bsky.social · last yr.🗓️ Thursday, April 10 📍7:25PM | Marquette | Historically Marginalized Voices in Biomaterials Determining the Role of PIEZO1 in Stiffness Sensing and Regulation of Muscle Fibro-Adipogenic Progenitors 👤 Soore Oguntuyo @thesoor.bsky.social **Catch Soore’s 3MT on Wednesday too!
Han Lab is headed to #SFB2025 in Chicago! Catch us sharing our latest on muscle mechanobiology and bioengineering 🧫💪 @thesoor.bsky.social @thegaaa.bsky.social @thechaar.bsky.social @thelaar.bsky.social @thejooosh.bsky.social
It was a great experience to hear all the great work condensed into 3 minutes and an honor to win the People's Choice Award at the ISMMS 3-Minute Thesis Competition!
Larion Santiago@thelaar.bsky.social · last yr.Honored to be selected as a finalist and to take home 2nd place🥈 in the ISMMS 3-Minute Thesis competition! Huge shoutout to @thesoor.bsky.social for winning the People’s Choice Award! Han Lab brought the heat! 🔥💪🏼 #ISMMS #3MT #science #research
I had such an enriching experience at NEBEC these past two days with my lab! Congrats to @thesoor.bsky.social and @thechaar.bsky.social on Best Poster Awards, as well as my PI @thewooj.bsky.social on the Emerging Investigator Award. Really inspiring stuff!
Today’s a special day. Huge congratulations to my MD/PhD student Soore @thesoor.bsky.social and undergraduate student Charlene @thechaar.bsky.social for winning Best Poster Presentation at NEBEC 2025. Proud doesn’t even begin to cover it. Grateful every day to work with such sharp, dedicated team.
#ProudPI 💪
Larion Santiago@thelaar.bsky.social · last yr.Honored to be selected as a finalist and to take home 2nd place🥈 in the ISMMS 3-Minute Thesis competition! Huge shoutout to @thesoor.bsky.social for winning the People’s Choice Award! Han Lab brought the heat! 🔥💪🏼 #ISMMS #3MT #science #research
In their Review, Laura Faure, Valeria Venturini @valeriaventurini.bsky.social and Pere Roca-Cusachs discuss the biological contexts of cell mechanical compression, the associated mechanisms and the experimental systems engineered to compress cells in vitro. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
My group plotted a Bluesky ambush this week. They all joined at once—with handles mimicking “thewooj.” 😂💀 Follow the chaos (and our science!): @thejooosh.bsky.social @thesoor.bsky.social @thehaan.bsky.social @thelaar.bsky.social @thechaar.bsky.social @themiiche.bsky.social @thegaaa.bsky.social
Happy to share our review on methodology for measuring and manipulating mechanical forces with specific focus on developmental biology! Congrats to authors @clemvilleneuve.bsky.social @mccreery.bsky.social and hats off to the community for developing awesome tools www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Measuring and manipulating mechanical forces during development - Nature Cell Biology
This Review discusses the recent advances in experimental approaches to interrogate the mechanical forces that mediate tissue deformations during development, highlighting the insights afforded at bot...
nature.com
Our latest paper is now published in Adv Biol. In this work, we explored how 3-dimensional confinement regulates muscle stem cell fate and function. Great & fun collab with @mourkiotilab.bsky.social! #myoblue onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
3D Mechanical Confinement Directs Muscle Stem Cell Fate and Function
This study reveals that the physical environment surrounding muscle stem cells (MuSCs) plays a crucial role in their function. Using a 3D hydrogel system, it shows that increased confinement preserve...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Woojin Han@thewooj.bsky.social · 2y agoHere’s our latest research! How do 3D mechanical cues shape muscle stem cells (MuSCs) in regeneration? We took a deep dive into this question in our latest work: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Resharing this list for those who joined Bsk more recently! #myoblue
Woojin Han@thewooj.bsky.social · 2y agoI noticed there wasn’t a starter pack for skeletal muscle scientists, so I made one as the muscle community continues to migrate here. Drop a comment if you’d like to be included! go.bsky.app/3hKK1WX