Lab Members

Annie (So Yeon) Kim is a project scientist in the Cedars-Sinai Department of Medicine. She studied liver immunology and metabolism during her master's/doctorate integrated course at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. From this study, she investigated the roles of hepatic macrophages via Toll-like receptor 4 and NADPH oxidase 2 in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Kim joined the Seki Lab in 2018. She is currently working on the study of liver disease, including NAFLD/NASH, ASH, liver fibrosis and liver malignancy, using single-cell approaches.

Jieun Kim, PhD, is a project scientist in the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai. She received her doctorate degree from Pusan National University in the Republic of Korea. Kim joined the Seki Laboratory in 2020. She is currently working on the study of mechanisms in liver metastasis.

Michi is a physician-scientist with a clinical background in gastroenterology and hepatology. He received his medical degree at Yokohama City University in Japan, and graduate degree at University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine. He has a strong research background in liver immunology and liver fibrosis research.

Sam is a postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai. He received his doctorate degree from the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), New Delhi, India. Sam joined the Seki Laboratory in 2024. He is currently working on the study of hepatocyte senescence and steatotic liver disease.

Mustafa Karabicici, PhD, is a postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai. He received her doctorate degree from Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center Türkiye. Mustafa joined the Seki Lab in 2025. He is currently working on the study of liver metastasis and immune tumor microenvironment (iTME) in high-fat diet (HFD) model.

Keiya is a physician-scientist with a clinical background in gastroenterology and hepatology. He received his medical degree from Shinshu University in Japan and completed his PhD at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University (now Institute of Science Tokyo). Keiya joined the Seki Lab in 2025. He is currently conducting research on liver fibrosis.

Vijay Pandyarajan, MD, PhD, is a research fellow in the Department of Digestive and Liver Diseases at Cedars-Sinai. He received his medical and graduate degrees from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Pandyarajan joined the Seki Laboratory in 2018. His research interests are in the microbiome of the gut and its relationship to fatty liver disease.

Takashi is a graduate student whose research interest is on the use of liver-on-a-chip and liver organoids to study chronic liver disease, including alcohol-associated liver disease and MASLD.

Tiantian is a medical student from Tsinghua University in China. Her research interest is the study of liver diseases using animal models and cell culture models.