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In the adult, haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) give rise to all blood and immune cell lineages, while maintaining a pool of stem cells in the bone marrow, a process known as self-renewal. Transplantation of HSCs from the bone marrow or cord blood serves as a lifesaving treatment for patients with malignant and non-malignant blood disorders. Unfortunately, these therapies render unfeasible or unsuccessful for certain patients due to donor-matching or insufficient cell numbers. Endeavours to solve these limitations have been incapable to create or expand a reliable course of blood stem cells in vitro for patients, predominantly due to defective self-renewal.听
I am interested in understanding the establishment and maintenance mechanisms that endow human HSC self-renewal, as determined by the expression of specific genes sets that define HSC function. I am investigating how the environment and metabolism affects this regulation of the expression of HSC-defining genes in order to develop methods to maintain these cells in a dish through improved preservation of their stemness. Ultimately, I aim to gain a better understanding of HSC biology and apply this knowledge towards developing novel HSC-based therapies.听