Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are rare blood stem cells that can give rise to all the different cells of the entire blood system and sustain the adult needs. Our research focuses on understanding how these cells develop in the growing embryo.
Impact
HSC transplant is a life saving therapy for people with blood cancers or bone marrow failure. Transplanting imperfectly matched cells can result in serious illness or even death. We can patient-specific blood stem cells in the laboratory as an alternate source of donor stem cells for transplants which can greatly help with donor shortage and mismatch. This requires reprogramming the patient’s own cells into pluripotent stem cells and then directing them into HSCs and HSC-like cells in the laboratory.
reNEW research
reNEW PIs Andrew Elefanty and Elizabeth Ng have developed a robust protocol which yields blood stem cell-like cells from human pluripotent stem cells in the laboratory capable of long term, multi lineage engraftment in immunodeficient mice.
Image description
Multiple blood cells in red are budding from the surface of the blue parent organoid derived from pluripotent stem cells.
Credits
Apapist Panichewa, Andrew Elefanty’s Lab, MCRI