Holger Russ

Dr. Holger Russ joined the faculty of the Barbara Davis Center in 2016 and is also a member of the Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine. His research focuses on using human stem cells to generate novel sources of beta cells for transplantation and to model human T1D in a dish. He led the research in one of the first three teams to demonstrate the generation of functional beta cells from human pluripotent stem cells under cell culture conditions and was one of the first to demonstrate the successful generation of human embryonic stem cell-derived thymic epithelial cells (TECs) by directed differentiation. Moving forward, Dr. Russ’ lab is determined to combine in vitro derived thymic epithelium with human T-cell progenitors either in vitro or in vivo to study diverse aspects of autoimmunity in a strictly human context.