Our laboratory studies blood stem cells, which can generate the diverse types of blood cells formed. The ability to sustain blood production throughout our lifetime is critical for our health. Many diseases result from failures of normal blood cell formation.

Understanding how stem cells are produced and their behaviours are controlled is critical for our endeavours to produce stem cells tailored for therapeutic use. Deciphering the processes of blood stem cell formation is the focus of our laboratory.

Research interest

We seek to gain a practical understanding of how different classes of blood cells, including the blood stem and progenitor cells, are produced. Because embryonic life is the only period during which blood cells are produced de novo, the developing embryo is an ideal model to learn how this is orchestrated.

Haematopoietic development in the embryo occurs in a sequential process, starting with primitive erythropoiesis and progenitor formation. Only after this has happened do the stem cells first appear.

Our laboratory is interested in utilising the embryo to resolve three key questions:

• How are the first haematopoietic lineage fates decisions made during early embryogenesis?
• What are the molecular regulators of de novo stem cell formation?
• What molecular pathways underpin self-renewal of foetal stem cells?