Altered hematopoietic environment in leukemia.
Our research has focused on stem cell biology, transcription factors, and gene regulation differences between normal adult cells and their diseased counterpart. Major advances have been made recently in describing the transcriptional networks dictating self-renewal of stem cells, and a number of important transcriptional regulators have been characterized during hematopoiesis; meanwhile, understanding how these processes become dysregulated in their function in hematopoietic stem cells has not been well established. Our research projects investigate the role of steady-state and perturbed microenvironments on stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, and more importantly the interplay between these contradictory forces within the stem cell niche.