Feng Chen, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Holger Willenbring. She is a former UCSF Liver Center trainee, and is currently supported by a fellowship from the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund.

She has a long-standing interest in tissue regeneration and is currently examining how the mammalian liver regenerates. She is developing tools and techniques to better trace the fate of liver cells in mice, and to dissect the molecular mechanisms that regulate liver regeneration. Prior to joining the Willenbring Lab, Feng completed her graduate studies at Stanford University in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Krasnow, where she studied progenitor cells in the Drosophila melanogaster trachea. She found a novel mechanism where progenitor cells giving rise to new trachea grow out of their niche by migrating along and following a chemoattractant cue expressed by older, decaying, tracheal tissue, a mechanism that may be present in other contexts of tissue regeneration.

Feng is also interested in growing liver tissue from induced pluripotent stem cells for transplantation into a mouse model of bile duct insufficiency.