About
I'm a PhD candidate in Genetics at Yale, working in the lab of Valentina Greco. My work asks how stem cells coordinate with their neighbors during epidermal regeneration — using intravital two-photon microscopy to watch transcription unfold in live mice, and building image-analysis pipelines to quantify what we see.
Before Yale I was a research professional in Calvin Kuo's lab at Stanford, where I built human organoid models to study coeliac disease and intestinal regeneration. I trained in biomedical engineering at Cornell and biological sciences at UC Irvine, where I first got hooked on stem cell biology in Bogi Andersen's lab.
Selected publications
Nature · 2024
Santos AJM, van Unen V, Lin Z, …, Kuo CJ
By preserving the epithelium alongside diverse immune populations, this human in vitro CeD model recapitulates gluten-dependent pathology, enables mechanistic investigation and establishes a proof of principle for the organoid modelling of autoimmunity.
Stem Cell Reports · 2023
Chen J, Wiedemann J, Nguyen L, Lin Z, Plikus M, Hui CC, Andersen B
IRX5 is required for DNA damage repair and cell cycle progression in HFSCs at the telogen-to-anagen transition and in epithelial progeny of HFSCs in early anagen hair follicles.
Nature Communications · 2020
Lin Z, Jin S, Chen J, Li ZR, Lin Z, Tang L, Nie Q, Andersen B
IFE differentiation is a continuous, gradualistic process punctuated by a single commitment point from plastic to irreversible fate — and GRHL3 gates both ends, suppressing Wnt-driven stem cell expansion early and driving terminal differentiation late.