Molecular pathways underlying the birth of blood stem cells

The recent interest in stem cell-based therapies has underlined the importance of understanding how adult tissue-specific stem cells are generated and differentiate into functional end cells. Although much work has been done to understand the biology of blood stem cells in the adult, it has so far not been possible to efficiently generate these cells de novo from ES/iPS cells. In the mammalian embryo, however, the entire cohort of blood stem cells that is responsible for the lifelong production of mature blood cells, is generated de novo early in development from a specialized subset of endothelial cells, the so-called hemogenic endothelium. This project will build on ongoing work in the lab that aims to identify the cellular intermediates, signals, gene regulatory networks and cellular processes that underlie the formation of blood stem cells in the embryo. These studies aim to obtain a mechanistic insight into the generation of a fully functional adult-type hematopoietic system, which will assist the rational design of improved or new blood stem cell-based therapies. Tailored to the specific project requirements, the successful candidate will receive training in several of the following techniques: embryo dissections, in vitro and in vivo hematopoietic assays, mouse/human ES/iPS cell culture, immunofluorescence, flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, molecular biology, genome editing (CRISPR/Cas9), chromatin assays/gene regulation, expression profiling on single cells/small cell numbers, computational biology, or other relevant technologies.

For further information, please contact:

Dr Marella de Bruijn [Email Address Removed]