Dave Hay Research Group

The liver plays a vital role in human health, including the detoxification of foreign substances. We use stem cells to grow liver tissue in the laboratory. The stem cells we use are called human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. The attraction of using these cell populations is their indefinite growth in the lab and their ability to form all the cells found in the human body. We have developed reliable methods for building human liver tissue. Encouragingly, it behaves in a similar way to the liver found in the human body. We believe our liver tissue has an important part to play in improving human drug development and repurposing; modelling human disease and in the future may provide an alternative source of human tissue to treat failing human liver function.

Professor David Hay

Group Leader

Contact details

• Website: Personal Profile
• Email: david.hay@ed.ac.uk

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Group members

Dewi Jones, PhD Student

Alvile Kasarinaite, PhD Student

Fatma Kok, Postdoctoral Stem Cell Scientist

Kasia Stefaniak, PhD Student

Funders

MRC

UKRMP

Innovate UK

Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Novo Nordisk

Collaborators

We work collaboratively with a number of groups in Edinburgh:

Stuart Forbes, Mark Bradley, Anthony Callanan, Mandy Drake, Colin Campbell, Carsten Hansen, Anura Rambukana and Bruno Peault

We collaborate with other researchers in the UK and overseas:

• Fiona Watt, Anil Dhawan, and Giovanna Lombardi, King’s College London
• Jan Hengstler, University of Dortmund
• Lijian Hui, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences
• Ron Hay, University of Dundee
• Cliona O’Farrelly, Trinity College Dublin
• Jo Mountford, University of Glasgow
• Michael Themis, Brunel University
• Will Shu, Strathclyde University

Our industry partners include:

• Ruchi Sharma, Stemnovate
• Kristian Tryggvason, Biolamina
• Dominic Williams, Astra Zeneca 
• Charis Segeritz-Walko – StemCell Technologies