Dr. Ngan F. Huang Receives Funding to Advance Research on Stem Cell Therapies for Treating Cardiovascular Disease
by Roxanna Van Norman
October 13, 2025
Ngan F. Huang, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Principal Investigator at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, has been awarded several research grants to advance her work in cardiovascular tissue engineering.
Dr. Huang leads a laboratory that investigates how stem cells interact with the extracellular matrix to engineer cardiovascular tissues for treating cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases. A versatile researcher, Dr. Huang combines her expertise in cardiovascular medicine, chemistry, and bioengineering to explore multidisciplinary approaches that advance regenerative medicine. Her research is supported by major institutions, including the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the American Heart Association, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Her recent grants include:
Awarded by the Department of Veteran Affairs - Merit Award (1I01BX006882-01); Duration: April 1, 2025 – September 30, 2029; Principal Investigator: Ngan F. Huang, PhD
Description: The objective of this specific project is to test the efficacy of a combinatorial strategy to enhance both vascular and muscle regeneration. The first strategy consists of parallel-aligned nanofibrillar collagen scaffolds for spatiotemporal delivery of chemically modified mRNA (mmRNA) encoding a potent muscle regeneration factor. The second strategy consists of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived ECs (iPSC-ECs) expanded on mechanically tunable hydrogels to improve endothelial phenotype, expansion, and function yet inhibiting de-differentiation during in vitro manufacturing. The global hypothesis is that delivery of both pro-myogenic and pro-angiogenic therapies will maximize tissue repair in small and large animal models of hindlimb ischemia (HLI) as an experimental model of CLTI.
Awarded by the National Institutes of Health (1R21HL177570-01A1); Duration: July 30, 2025 – July 29, 2027; Principal Investigators: Ngan F. Huang, PhD; Xiaojing Gao, PhD
Description: Over 8 million people in the US suffer from peripheral artery disease (PAD), which is characterized by narrowing of the arteries in the arms or legs that lead to insufficient blood flow and limb ischemia. A therapeutic strategy to treat PAD is to boost the formation of new vessels through a process known as angiogenesis. We previously demonstrated that the delivery of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived endothelial cells (iPSC-ECs) improves blood perfusion and angiogenesis in preclinical models of PAD. However, a major bottleneck is poor post-transplantation iPSC-EC survival and the limited capability to reshape the local immune response. To overcome these limitations, we propose to develop novel engineering strategies that would enable the quantitative and dynamic regulation of growth factors and cytokines produced from iPSC-ECs after transplantation. Specifically, the strategies leverage a novel control knob we developed from a human protease and its FDA-approved inhibitor, which would facilitate its eventual deployment in patients because of its reduced immunogenic risk compared to existing control tools and the availability of off-the-shelf external control.
Dr. Ngan Huang