Sangbum Park , PhD

Biography

Dr. Sangbum Park is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. from Seoul National University and completed postdoctoral training at Yale University. His research focuses on understanding the fundamental principles that govern tissue regeneration during homeostasis and wound repair in live mammals. To study these processes, Dr. Park established novel intravital live imaging approaches that enable visualization of cellular behaviors directly in living mice (Pineda* & Park* et al., Nature Protocols, 2015; Park et al., Current Opinion in Cell Biology, 2016). Using these approaches, he visualized individual cells during wound repair and discovered that differentiated epithelial cells, in addition to stem cells, actively migrate and contribute to tissue regeneration (Park et al., Nature Cell Biology, 2017), challenging the long-standing view that stem cells are the sole drivers of tissue repair. More recently, his work revealed how crosstalk between epithelial stem cells and tissue-resident immune cells contributes to maintaining tissue homeostasis in healthy skin (Park & Matte-Martone et al., Nature Cell Biology, 2021). Building on this foundation, the Park laboratory investigates how epithelial–immune cell interactions regulate tissue regeneration at the organ level, both under normal conditions and in disease contexts such as diabetes.