Tobias D Raabe

faculty photo
Research Assistant Professor of Medicine (Translational Medicine and Human Genetics)
Department: Medicine

Contact information
11-136 Smilow Center for Translational Research
3400 Civic Center Boulevard
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: 215 805 1047
Lab: 215 898 5762
Education:
B.S. (General Studies, Natural Sciences, Music)
Paracelsus Gymnasium Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, 1977.
M.S. (Microbiology)
University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, 1984.
Ph.D. (Molecular Genetics, lab of Prof. Werner Arber)
University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 1988.
Post-Graduate Training
Post-Doctoral Research Scientist, Columbia University, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Mentor: James Manley, 1989-1994.
Staff Investigator, The Picower Institute for Medical research, Manhasset, NY , 1994-1997.
Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Ohio State University, Dept. of Molecular Genetics and ICMB, University of Texas at Austin, TX. Mentor moved: Ellen Gottlieb., 1997-2000.
Post-doctoral Researcher, Center for Research on Reproduction and Women’s Health, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Mentor: Norman Hecht, 2000-2002.
Permanent link
 
> Perelman School of Medicine   > Faculty   > Details

Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Raabe is a Research Assistant Professor at the Division of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics at the Department of Medicine. His lab is pioneering the derivation and characterization of adult mouse and human liver derived bipotent ductal organoids. These organoids can be cloned and passaged over many months in culture and can be readily genetically manipulated. The Raabe lab uses these organoids for liver cell/gene therapy as well as for liver disease modeling and drug screening. Recently, the Raabe lab discovered that bipotent ductal organoids can readily be derived from endstage NASH patient liver and have shown that they share many functional properties of the NASH liver they were derived from. This opens the new area of personalized functional analysis and medicine for NASH based on NASH patient liver derived organoids. In addition, the Raabe lab has strong expertise in CRISPR-mediated gene targeting, originally by generation many novel CRISPR mediated mice. Most recently, he works on CRISPR - generated knockout and knockin models in human tissue derived organoids which are traditionally hard to genetically manipulate. In 2023 Dr. Raabe has initiated a collaboration with the Weissmann lab at the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation to use mRNA LNPs for fast and efficient CRISPR mediated gene targeting directly in organoids. This has the potential to revolutionize gene targeting of human tissue derived organoids which in turn will allow to effectively study the function of specific genes in human diseased tissue derived organoids.

Description of Itmat Expertise

My main interest is the derivation, culture and characterization of mouse and human adult liver - derived organoids for the study of liver function, personalized drug screening and -ultimately - therapeutic repopulation of the liver. Currently there is as strong focus on developing novel efficient mRNA LNP based methods to genetically manipulate individual genes in human adult tissue derived organoids, which is difficult using existing methods. For this purpose I started a collaboration with the Weissman lab at the Penn Institute for mRNA Innovation. Smaller collaborative projects include the use of human iPSC for the study of neuronal disease and generation of mouse models of neuronal disease.
back to top
Last updated: 01/10/2024
The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania