Dr. Bon-Kyoung Koo is an experienced mouse geneticist actively employing the emerging organoid culture technology to study stem cell maintenance and activation in mouse and human intestinal and stomach organoid cultures. Following his PhD and first post-doctoral studies in the laboratory of Prof. Young-Yun Kong at POSTECH – Republic of Korea, Dr. Koo joined the group of Prof. Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute, KNAW, Netherlands. Here he witnessed the first establishment of the Lgr5+ cell-derived intestinal organoid culture system pioneered by Dr. Toshiro Sato and Prof. Hans Clevers. In the following years Dr. Koo has utilised this novel culture system to perform sophisticated gene correction studies, to unravel the molecular regulation of adult stem cells and to proof the stem cell properties of a Troy+, quiescent reserve stem cell population in the stomach. Dr. Koo started his own group at the University of Cambridge in 2013. He has now moved his group to IMBA Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna, where he continues his work on developing novel genetic tools to further investigate how proliferating and quiescent adult epithelial stem cell populations are regulated both in homeostasis and during injury mediated repair.

Website: https://www.imba.oeaw.ac.at/research/bon-kyoung-koo/