Home Department: Undeclared
Mentor: Ravindra Majeti (Medicine - Hematology)

“Influence of External Stressors on the Behavior of Pre-leukemic Hematopoietic Stem Cells”

The Majeti lab aims to investigate how inflammatory stressors alter the behavior of pre-leukemic stem cells. They will use CRISPR/Cas9 to modify healthy primary human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to carry pre-leukemic mutations, and subject them to inflammatory stimuli including lipopolysaccharide, polyl:C and Interferon-gamma. Following stimulation, they will assess cell cycling, cell fate decisions, differentiation, and colony formation. Next, they will determine the migratory behavior of mutant versus normal cells using a time-lapse live cell imaging system. Finally, they will perform transcriptome sequencing to determine gene expression patterns driven by these external stressors. Together, they anticipate delineating how these stimuli contribute to inflammation-driven expansion of mutant cells into leukemia.