Ridzky Yuda

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Hematology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. As a stem cell biologist, I am intrigued by the process of how stem cells balance self-renewal and differentiation, and when that mechanisms get awry in age-related degenerative diseases and cancers. My research aims to understand cellular and molecular (transcriptome and epigenome) mechanisms that govern hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) fate decisions and macrophage self-renewal during inflammation, aging, or combination of both.

During my Ph.D. training under the supervision of Prof. Michael Sieweke’s at the Technische Universität Dresden, I contributed to demonstrating that alveolar macrophages—a tissue-resident macrophage population in the lung—can undergo extensive self-renewal in culture without losing core cellular identity, and that they can be genetically engineered using lentiviral vectors.

Currently, I am investigating how alcohol and aging shape HSC lineage commitment by integrating single-cell multi-omics (scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq) with bone marrow reconstitution assays. For this work, I am supported by a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship award from the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund (MSCRF). My primary expertise is in experimental hematology but I also conduct bioinformatic analysis of scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq datasets to interpret the molecular programs underpinning HSC behavior.