Year 1
We aim to understand how blood stem cells develop from blood vessels during development. We are also interested in learning whether the blood-making program can be turned back on in blood vessel cells for blood production outside the human body. During the past year we have been able to extract and culture blood vessel cells that once had blood making capacity. We have also started experiments that will help uncover the regulation of the blood making program. In addition, we have developed tools to help the process of understanding whether iPS technology can “turn back time” in mature blood vessels and turn on the blood making program.