simply blood

We are beginning a new blog series on SimplyBlood called “Exploring Experimental Hematology.” Here we will highlight and deconstruct some our favorite manuscripts from the ISEH society journal. Welcome to entry 1.

If you are a millennial or are raising a post-millennial you must be familiar with unboxing YouTube videos where you can watch someone open a new item and then explain the item in detail. While I might not fully understand why my kids enjoy watching other kids open toys, I do get the excitement of sharing my thoughts and deconstructing a new and exciting Experimental Hematology article for the community.

In this blog, I'll be exploring the review “Hematopoietic stem cell fate through metabolic control” by Kyoko Ito and Keisuke Ito.

My reason for reading the paper:
They have provided us with an excellent review on HSC and metabolism that is a must read for anyone in the HSC field. I still remember the first time I heard a Toshio Suda talk about hematopoietic stem cells …

The 47th Annual International Society for Experimental Hematology meeting took place in sunny Los Angeles, California, August 23-26th. The exciting program (https://www.iseh.org/page/2018Program) included career and technology sessions, as well as talks and poster presentations from trainees, new investigators and leaders in the field.


On behalf of the ISEH Board of Directors, volunteers and staff, we'd like to thank our 2018 sponsors and exhibitors, seen below. We hope to see you all in Brisbane in 2019!


Thank you to our 2018 Platinum Sponsors



Thank you to our 2018 Gold Sponsors







Thank you to our 2018 Silver Sponsor



Thank you to our 2018 Educational Support Sponsors

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 Ding Lab at Columbia University.


How long have you had your lab?
I started in February 2013. So a little over 5 years.

How many members make up your lab? Students/postdocs?
There are four graduate students and one postdoc in the lab currently. I would like to have another postdoc or two. That will be the ideal composition of my ‘dream’ lab.

What is the major research theme of your lab?
We investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms, particular extrinsic mechanisms, that regulate hematopoietic stem cell function. We also study how these mechanisms contribute to hematological diseases.

What's your best approach to mentoring students in the lab?
Everyone is different. I try to tailor my mentoring style to each student. The goal …

A funny thing happened to me the other day – I got the official notice that my promotion to Associate Professor of Medicine with tenure was approved (Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis).  It was all very anticlimactic, just a letter that showed up in my internal mailbox.  There was no phone call from the Dean or the Chair of the Department of Medicine, no big party, no fanfare – just a signed letter staring back at me.  It was a very surreal experience.  This is something most of us strive for and work so hard towards and then when the moment arrives, it was all very … meh.

Sometimes it still doesn’t seem real, I keep waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder saying … oops we made a mistake.  I go to meetings and conferences and see all the amazing work being done by my colleagues, contemporaries and collaborators and it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed.  So much of the world’s cutting edge research is being done in hematology that as a young investigator it is rea…

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 Stachura Lab at California State University, Chico.  


How long have you had your lab?  
Since 2014

How many members make up your lab?  Students/postdocs? 
I currently have 12 members; 6 undergraduate students and 6 Master’s students.  I’m at a primarily undergraduate institution, so I don’t have any Ph.D. students or postdocs.  

What is the major research theme of your lab?  
Our major goal is to discover genes essential for hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell differentiation and proliferation, and how this normal process is disrupted in blood diseases.

What is the most exciting project in your lab right now?
We have a few exciting projects going in the lab, and they are pretty diverse.  Some students are looking at anti-cancer drug…

Welcome back to the blog series “Things Nobody Told me About Being a PI”.  In part 1, we covered financial/administrative management.  Part 2 dealt with personnel/team management.  In the final installment, I would like to touch on an issue which was a big personal adjustment for me.

Something that was completely unexpected for me as a new PI was a sense of loneliness.  As a post-doc, you are probably used to working in a busy lab, maybe in a bay of 2-3 other trainees all bustling around doing experiments.  This builds a sense of comradery as you bond over failed experiments, talk about exciting new papers, and maybe plan what beers you are going to try at happy hour that afternoon.  As a new PI, you often spend a lot of time alone in your office - writing grants / papers, attending to the masses of incoming email, and handling all your regulatory protocols.  Even though you might be surrounded by people running around in the lab, and even other PIs down the hall, the relative silence …