Bong Ihn Koh

Bong-Ihn Koh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine and at the Yale Stem Cell Center. He began his research career in Dr. David Scadden’s laboratory as an undergraduate student at Harvard University. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2014 from Princeton University, where he studied the mammary gland stem cell microenvironment in Dr. Yibin Kang’s laboratory. His military service and passion for vascular biology led him to study the meningeal vascular response following severe head injury in Dr. Injune Kim’s laboratory at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. In 2020, he joined Dr. Ralf Adams' laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, where he made the surprising discovery that the skull bone marrow continues to grow throughout life and stays resilient against aging.

Bong-Ihn investigates specialized stem cell microenvironments, with a particular focus on vasculature, in various craniofacial bones to find novel cellular/molecular targets to drive stem cell fate. His lab utilizes state-of-the-art imaging methods and innovative functional assays to explore novel bone marrow niches and understand their distinct contribution to fundamental physiological processes, such as brain function, immunity, and regeneration. Bong-Ihn has presented his work as an invited speaker at major conferences, including the International Vascular Biology Meeting (IVBM), Gordon Research Conference (GRC) “Angiogenesis”, European School of Haematology (ESH) Workshop “Tumour Microenvironment”, European Vascular Biology Organization (EVBO) Seminars, European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO) Meeting, and European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) Meeting.