Posts

Career Development For Early Stage Investigators: Dr. Stuart Orkin

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This week on Simply Blood, Dr. Stuart Orkin , Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, discusses strategies to being a successful scientist, balancing projects to sustain progress, and career development benchmarks for early stage investigators. Stuart Orkin, MD Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston Children's Hospital Howard Hughes Medical Institute Blog post contributed by Grant Rowe, MD, PhD (X: @bloodandtime1, Bluesky @bloodandtime.bsky.social), of the ISEH Publications Committee. Please note that the statements made by Simply Blood authors are their own views and not necessarily the  views of ISEH. ISEH disclaims any or all liability arising from any author's statements or materials.

Lab Spotlight: Patel Lab

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  Patel Lab Each month, Simply Blood spotlights a lab contributing to the fields of hematology, immunology, stem cell research, cell and gene therapies, and more. Get to know groups doing cutting edge research from around the world! This month, we are featuring the Patel Lab out of the University of Utah/Huntsman Cancer Institute, USA. Can you introduce yourself briefly? I am a physician-scientist in the Division of Hematology and Hematologic Malignancies at the University of Utah/Huntsman Cancer Institute. I see patients with chronic myeloid neoplasms in clinic once a week and also attend on our inpatient leukemia service. I am originally from the Boston suburbs and was in the Chicago area for a long time for my undergraduate degree, medical school and internal medicine residency at Northwestern University. I never thought I would end up in Salt Lake City, Utah, but my husband and I have been here over 10 years now and we absolutely love it! I have a 3-year old son and another kid...

An Interview with ISEH President Shannon McKinney-Freeman

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  This week on Simply Blood, Shannon McKinney-Freeman sits down with Publications Committee member John Crispino to discuss the purpose and benefits of ISEH, share advice for young investigators, and explore the future direction of ISEH and experimental hematology. Shannon McKinney-Freeman, PhD St. Jude Children's Research Hospital 2024-2025 ISEH President Blog post contributed by John Crispino, PhD, MBA  of the ISEH Publications Committee.  Please note that the statements made by Simply Blood authors are their own views and not necessarily the  views of ISEH. ISEH disclaims any or all liability arising from any author's statements or materials.

Preprint Watch: January

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The first monthly trawl for 2025 is plentiful: 9 preprints focusing on Acute Myeloid Leukemia, but also spatial fate mapping meets barcoding, how cell fate decisions occur in hematopoietic progenitors, and more! If there's a specific preprint you enjoyed and would like to see featured, please send it to us using this form . STEM AND PROGENITOR CELLS BIOLOGY Semaphorin 4A maintains functional diversity of the hematopoietic stem cell pool https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.12.622506v1?rss=1 The authors looked at Semaphorin 4A (Sema4A), a protein produced by neutrophils and signaling through Plexin D1, able to protect myeloid-biased hematopoietic stem cells (myHSCs) from inflammatory stress, preserving their epigenetic state and regenerative capacity. In the absence of Sema4A, myHSCs exhibit inflammatory hyper-responsiveness, leading to excessive expansion, myeloid bias, and impaired function with age. Mitochondria Regulate the Cell Fate Decisions of Megakaryocyte-Erythro...

Selected Research on HSC Metabolism

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Mitochondrial Deep Dive into Hematopoietic Stem Cell Dormancy: Not Much Glycolysis but Plenty of Sluggish Lysosomes Jiajing Qiu, Saghi Ghaffari Qiu and Ghaffari review the diverse mechanisms by which cellular metabolism regulates quiescence in adult hematopoietic stem cells, particularly highlighting the role lysosomes and autophagy. Figure 2 The multifaceted role of mitochondria in HSC fate decisions: energy and beyond Marie-Dominique Filippi  Marie-Dominique Filippi reviews the role of mitochondrial metabolism in regulation of the transition from quiescence to activation in hematopoietic stem cells as well as roles in regulating fate decisions.  This review highlights the importance of mitochondrial membrane potential and the factors that control this key determinant of metabolism. Figure 1 HSC-derived fatty acid oxidation in steady-state and stressed hematopoiesis Jayna J. Mistry, Kristian Bowles, Stuart A. Rushworth Mistry et al., discuss the central role of fatty aci...

Preprint Watch: December

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  Read the last monthly trawl for 2024! We have one preprint, straight from our Community, plus no less than 17 other preprints! Remember, if you want your preprint highlighted here, send it to us using this form ! From the Simply Blood Community: A rare HSC-derived megakaryocyte progenitor accumulates via enhanced survival and contributes to exacerbated thrombopoiesis upon aging https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.04.621964v1  This study identifies an age-dependent, non-canonical pathway for megakaryocyte progenitor (MkP) and platelet production directly from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), generating hyperactive platelets linked to age-related thrombotic risks. Single-cell analyses reveal that these non-canonical MkPs exist in both young and aged mice, but aged MkPs exhibit enhanced survival and platelet production, highlighting functional and aging-dependent heterogeneity in megakaryopoiesis. Learn more about this preprint by contacting Bryce Manso at bmanso@uc...

Spotlight on ISEH Committees: The New Investigators Committee

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Past and New Members of the NIC at the ISEH 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, USA! View the full list of current NIC members here . The ISEH New Investigators Committee: who we are and what we do for ISEH.  Who is part of the ISEH New Investigators Committee (NIC)? How do we contribute to ISEH? How can I get involved with the NIC or other ISEH committees? Those questions come up often during ISEH events. Their answers might be obvious to some readers, but maybe not so much to other readers. Therefore, we thought it would be useful to provide you with an overview of the ISEH NIC and offer you some advice on how to apply to this super dynamic and friendly committee. This blog post will also introduce you to the 2024-2025 NIC agenda. If you have additional questions, you can also get in touch with us through ISEH or by direct messaging on platforms such as X and Bluesky. Without further ado, let’s get started! What is the composition and role of the NIC? Firstly, the NIC...