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Research overview
The Mok lab, currently supported by the Royal Society and previously by the British Heart Foundation, studies the embryonic origin of blood stem cells and endothelial cells in the avian model system. We are interested in the developmental molecular and cellular mechanisms that define cell fate and use approaches such as single-cell multi-omics, advanced live imaging and bioinformatics to tackle these questions.
My story
“I am an early career researcher that has recently set up my own lab here at UEA. Throughout my career from PhD to current date, I have always been fascinated by how a cell decides what to become when and where. How we go from a single cell (egg) to a multi-cellular organism is one of the most fundamental biological questions. I use the avian embryo as a model system (very similar to how humans develop) to investigate how the very first progenitors will give rise to the vascular system (the blood and vessels). I hope what we discover will be able to translate into human in vitro systems and inform the generation of hematopoietic stem cells in culture with the goal of producing clinically relevant stem cells for therapeutic purposes.”
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