simply blood

This week on Simply Blood we continue our 2021 Interview Spotlight Series! In Part II we are highlighting the ISEH 2021 Janet Rowley Award Winner: Elisa Laurenti, Ph.D . Click below to listen as Dr. Laurenti answers questions about her scientific passions, career path, mentorship and more. Interested in hearing more about Dr. Laurenti’s fascinating work?  Don’t miss her session at this year’s ISEH Virtual Scientific Meeting ! Dr Elisa Laurenti Sir Henry Dale Fellow - Group Leader Wellcome Trust - Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute Centre for Haematopoiesis and Leukemia Research - Department of Haematology - University of Cambridge Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre Cambridge Biomedical Campus www.stemcells.cam.ac.uk Interviewed by Myriam Haltalli  ISEH New Investigators Committee  & Kellie Machlus of the ISEH Junior PI Committee

Each month, Simply Blood spotlights a lab focused on the research of basic hematology, immunology, stem cell research, cell and gene therapy, and other related aspects. Get to know these different labs around the world! This month, we are featuring the Velten Lab at the Centre for Genomic Regulation located in Barcelona, Spain! How long have you had your lab? I only started in January 2020. There was a pandemic for almost 90% of the time that my lab has existed… Fortunately, the Spanish anti-Corona measures were only really tough for three months. So, despite everything, we were able to grow together as a team and get experimental work done. What was your biggest transition from a post-doc to a group leader/lab PI? To me, it felt like a big relief. As a senior postdoc, I was leading or co-leading three projects and was involved in even more. The number of projects I’m involved in is definitely not getting smaller, but now I can strategically grow a team of independent and dedicated res

This week on Simply Blood we are kicking off our 2021 Interview Spotlight Series. In Part I we are featuring the ISEH 2021 New Investigator’s Invitee: Dan Landau, M.D, Ph.D. Here, Dr. Landau answers questions about his scientific passions, unusual but highly successful career path, mentorship and more. Interested in hearing more about Dr. Landau’s fascinating work? Don’t miss his session at this year’s ISEH Virtual Scientific Meeting ! 1. What is your key scientific question? What do you consider as your major contribution to the field over the past 5 years? The lab’s key scientific question is exploring the fundamental principles of human somatic evolution. We are fascinated by the realization that the trillions of cells in our body continuously evolve throughout life, with significant implication to human health and disease. Cancer represents an extreme case of human somatic evolution where in a “runaway process” cells evolve more rapidly at the expense of the multi-cellular host. O

Australia has been relatively lucky in the current pandemic because, to date, we have managed to eliminate community transmissions of COVID. We did, however, experience significant community transmission in Melbourne (and some other parts of Australia) in 2020. The people of Melbourne (a city of approximately 5 million people) were subjected to strict lockdowns that has, fortunately, been successful. I have been asked to give a first-hand account of the local situation and the impact on researchers in Melbourne. Our first lockdown commenced on 24th March. Social distancing measures were put in place everywhere. We were permitted to leave our homes for 2 hours daily for exercise and shopping, although it was advised to limit shopping and preferably only have one household member do the shopping. Our second, harsh lockdown commenced on 9th July and continued through the end of October. We were allowed one hour of exercise outside per day (restricted to a 5km limit) and only one household

Each month, Simply Blood spotlights a lab focused on the research of basic hematology, immunology, stem cell research, cell and gene therapy, and other related aspects. Get to know these different labs around the world! This month, we are featuring the Ottersbach Lab at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh! 1. How long have you had your lab for? I established my lab first in Cambridge in September 2006 and then I moved the lab to Edinburgh in March 2015. Overall, I had my own lab for almost 15 years now. 2. What's the major research theme of your lab and what's one of the most exciting projects that is either ongoing or that you did in the past? When I first started off, my lab continued work I had started during my postdoc, characterizing how blood, especially blood stem cells, develop in the embryo in mouse models. I still love that subject, but I have currently only one PhD student working on that topic. But what I realized at some point was th

ISEH members* have sent in their votes, and we are pleased to share with you the results of the 2021 Board of Directors elections. The individuals, identified below, will join the ISEH Board of Directors in September 2021. Please join us in congratulating these new and returning members of ISEH Leadership! Marella de Bruijn University of Oxford, United Kingdom Vice President Carl Walkley Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University, Australia Director - Pacific Rim Nina Cabezas-Wallscheid Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Germany Director - Europe/Middle East/Africa Jennifer Trowbridge The Jackson Laboratory, United States of America Director - Americas