08/20/2026
π¬ From the Bench Takeover: Get ready to go behind the scenes with the Monga Lab!
Lab: The Monga Lab β Pittsburgh Liver Research Center & Organ Pathobiology and Therapeutics Institute (OPTIn), University of Pittsburgh / UPMC
PI: Satdarshan (Paul) Singh Monga, MD
Lab page: https://livercenter.pitt.edu/people/paul-monga-md/
This month's From the Bench takeover heads to Pittsburgh, where the Monga Lab is working out how the liver builds, breaks, repairs, and occasionally betrays itself.
Led by Satdarshan (Paul) Singh Monga, MD β Director of the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center and of the Organ Pathobiology and Therapeutics Institute (OPTIn), and Associate Dean of Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine β the lab studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind liver development, injury, regeneration, and tumor formation.
Much of that work traces back to a single signaling pathway, Wnt/Ξ²-catenin, and to a question the lab has been chasing since the late 1990s: how does the liver decide which cells do which job, and what happens when those instructions go wrong?
The answers show up in tissue. The lab maps metabolic zonation β the way hepatocytes in different regions of the liver lobule are assigned different functions β and uses genetic mouse models, immunolabeling, and intravital multiphoton microscopy to watch liver injury, cholestasis, and tumorigenesis unfold in situ. That imaging work has led to models of hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma that closely mirror human disease, and to therapeutic strategies now moving into clinical trials at UPMC.
Come see what liver biology looks like at the bench! π§ͺ
