
YU Hanry
Professor, Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore
phsyuh@nus.edu.sg
+65 6516 3466
MD 9, #03-03; MD 1, #B1-03;
National University of Singapore
2 Medical Drive #04-01
Singapore 117597
Laboratory website
Translational Mechanobiology Laboratory
Research Program
Technology Innovation for Mechanobiology
Building the Future of Cell Biology Together at Cell Bio 2026
Professor Rong Li, President of the American Society for Cell Biology calls for participation for Cell Bio 2026 in San Diego. The meeting will feature more than 400 scientific talks and over 2,500 poster presentations, alongside symposia, minisymposia, and special interest subgroup sessions selected by the Program Committee directly from member-suggested topics.
Seeking Research Assistant in the labs of Dr. Natalie Dye and Dr. Alphée Michelot at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS
We are seeking a Research Assistant to join the labs of Dr. Natalie Dye and Dr. Alphée Michelot at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS.
Seeking Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Vascular Mechano-medicine Lab led by Dr. Shailaja Seetharaman at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS
We are seeking to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the research group of Dr. Shailaja Seetharaman at the Mechanobiology Institute and Department of Physiology at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS.
A Cell Never Forgets: How Prior Environments Affect Confined Cell Migration
Researchers from the Holle Lab at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS discover that cells retain mechanical memory that influences subsequent migration despite environmental changes, suggesting broader implications for understanding wound healing, fibrosis and cancer metastasis.
Yu Hanry
Principal Investigator
Research Areas
Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory translates the latest biological and engineering knowledge into innovative technologies for diagnostics, therapeutics and drug testing applications in pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.
Research Interests
We adopt the latest industrial management models of teams to train future leaders of the R&D-based industry and academia. Our research expertise span from basic biological studies, biomaterials synthesis, to integrative engineering of biomedical devices that facilitate the translation of systems level understanding of biological functional processes into significant application solutions to help patients with liver diseases; and fuel biomedical industrial development in Asia. We acquire fundamental principles and technologies to quantitatively study and manipulate liver cell and tissue polarity and functions at meso-scale such that their global tissue structures and functions can be precision-engineered at mm-cm scales for applications.
Biography
Prof Yu is a Professor in the Department of Physiology, YLL School of Medicine, National University Health System, Principal Investigator at MBI, and Co-Lead Principal Investigator, Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized-Medicine (CAMP), Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). He was trained as a cell biologist but ventured into various other disciplines such as imaging, biomaterials, tissue engineering, drug testing, and computational biology of liver fibrosis. He takes pride in the interdisciplinary approach to research and graduate training; and he strives to build integrated teams to equip future graduates to readily adapt into both industrial and future academic settings.
Education
PhD, Duke University, USA
Recent Publications
- Balachander GM, Ng IC, Pai RR, Mitra K, Tasnim F, Lim YS, Kwok R, Song Y, Yaw LP, Quah CB, Zhao J, Septiana WL, Kota VG, Teng Y, Zheng K, Xu Y, Lim SH, Ng HH, and Yu H. LEADS – a comprehensive human liver-on-a-chip for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) drug testing. Lab Chip 2025;. [PMID: 40391591]
- Wu X, Raymond JJ, Liu Y, Odermatt AJ, Sin W, Teo DBL, Natarajan M, Ng IC, Birnbaum ME, Lu TK, Han J, Springs SL, and Yu H. Rapid Universal Detection of High-Risk and Low-Abundance Microbial Contaminations in CAR-T Cell Therapy. Small Methods 2025;:e2500253. [PMID: 40159755]
- Zhou H, Loo LSW, Ong FYT, Lou X, Wang J, Myint MK, Thong A, Seow DCS, Wibowo M, Ng S, Lv Y, Kwang LG, Bennie RZ, Pang KT, Dobson RCJ, Domigan LJ, Kanagasundaram Y, and Yu H. Cost-effective production of meaty aroma from porcine cells for hybrid cultivated meat. Food Chem 2025; 473:142946. [PMID: 39864181]
- Bennie RZ, Ogilvie OJ, Loo LSW, Zhou H, Ng SK, Jin A, Trlin HJF, Wan A, Yu H, Domigan LJ, and Dobson RCJ. A risk-based approach can guide safe cell line development and cell banking for scaled-up cultivated meat production. Nat Food 2025;. [PMID: 39753758]
- Lou X, Wang J, Kwang LG, Zhou H, Ong FYT, Ng S, and Yu H. Perforated imprinting on high moisture meat analogue confers long range mechanical anisotropy resembling meat cuts. NPJ Sci Food 2024; 8(1):106. [PMID: 39706829]
- Liu Y, Raymond JJ, Wu X, Chua PWL, Ling SYH, Chan CC, Chan C, Loh JXY, Song MXY, Ong MYY, Ho P, Mcbee ME, Springs SL, Yu H, and Han J. Electrostatic microfiltration (EM) enriches and recovers viable microorganisms at low-abundance in large-volume samples and enhances downstream detection. Lab Chip 2024;. [PMID: 39189168]
- Ma Y, Li Z, Luo Y, Chen Y, Ma L, Liu X, Xiao J, Huang M, Li Y, Jiang H, Wang M, Wang X, Li J, Kong J, Shi P, Yu H, Jiang X, and Guo Q. Biodegradable Microembolics with Nanografted Polyanions Enable High-Efficiency Drug Loading and Sustained Deep-Tumor Drug Penetration for Locoregional Chemoembolization Treatment. ACS Nano 2024;. [PMID: 38946122]
- Wu Y, Cheng J, Qi J, Hang C, Dong R, Low BC, Yu H, and Jiang X. Three-dimensional liquid metal-based neuro-interfaces for human hippocampal organoids. Nat Commun 2024; 15(1):4047. [PMID: 38744873]
- Luo X, Wang J, Tan C, Dou Q, Han Z, Wang Z, Tasnim F, Wang X, Zhan Q, Li X, Zhou Q, Cheng J, Liao F, Yip HC, Jiang J, Tan RT, Liu S, and Yu H. Rapid Endoscopic Diagnosis of Benign Ulcerative Colorectal Diseases with an Artificial Intelligence Contextual Framework. Gastroenterology 2024;. [PMID: 38583724]
Lab Members
Recent Lab Alumni
Beyond the Trend: Creating the Next Frontier in Cell Biology
Beyond the Trend: Creating the Next Frontier in Cell Biology. A message from Prof. Rong Li, MBI Director and 2026 President of the American Society for Cell Biology.
Violet vs. Blue: Controlling Mechanotransduction with a Single-protein Light Switch
In a study published in the Journal of Cell Science, led by Ryosuke Nishimura at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS, researchers developed an optogenetic tool to precisely manipulate talin’s structure and observe the resulting cellular behavior.
Yiwen Zhu
Research Fellow, Yu Group
Brandon Goh Yeow Wee
Research Fellow, Seetharaman Group
Hana Maldivita Tambrin
Research Fellow, Seetharaman Group
Congratulations to Boon Heng for successfully defending his thesis!
Our heartfelt congratulations to Boon Heng!
Kevin Heinrich Kaub
Research Fellow, Michelot Group
Fang Zhou
Research Fellow, Holle Group
MBI warmly welcomes Shailaja Seetharaman!
MBI warmly welcomes Shailaja Seetharaman as a MBI PI leading the Vascular Mechano-Medicine Lab.
Elgene Chng Junyuan
PhD Student, Lim Group
Bryan Ng Zheng Jie
Research Assistant, Lim Group
Ge Zhixing
Research Fellow, Lim Group









