Kai Yu, PhD, is an acting assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a member of the Seattle Children's Research Institute's Center for Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

As a developmental biologist, Dr. Yu's goal is to translate knowledge gained from animal model studies into clinical treatments for human birth defects. He has a particular interest in cleft palate, one of the most common birth defects. Although cleft palate can be corrected through surgical treatments after birth, patients require multidisciplinary care and follow-up treatment from birth to adulthood. At Seattle Children's, He combines mouse genetics and state-of-the-art three-dimensional imaging technologies to study palate morphogenesis during embryonic development and investigate how various genetic and environmental risk factors disrupt normal development, leading to cleft palate formation. Dr. Yu hopes that this research will contribute to developing new strategies for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cleft palate disorders.

With expertise in craniofacial development, Dr. Yu also participates in multidisciplinary studies aimed at understanding the development of the hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) niche in calvarial bone marrow, a recently identified function of calvarial bones in neuroimmunology. In collaboration with Dr. Andy Shih, Dr. Yu uses in vivo 2-photon imaging to examine how postnatal calvarial vascularization leads to the formation of the calvarial bone marrow HSPC niche and how vascular connections between the calvaria and meninges create pathways for immune cell transit to the meninges, triggering neuroimmunological responses. This foundational research supports the rapidly expanding field of calvarial bone marrow studies in neuroimmunology and regenerative medicine and is expected to facilitate future studies on how calvarial changes caused by bone injury may impact immune protection of the brain.