Dave Hay Research Group

Liver Tissue Development and Engineering

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

• Work: 0131 651 9500
• Email: david.hay@ed.ac.uk
• Web: Personal Profile

Aims and areas of interest

Our aims are:

• To develop informative human liver models produced from pluripotent stem cells
• To develop implantable human liver tissue derived from pluripotent stem cells
• To develop synthetic and natural materials for tissue engineering purposes

Professor Hay recently wrote an article on careers in science for Futurum Careers.