Home Department: Biology
Supported by: Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Mentor: Kathleen Sakamoto, Pediatrics

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are used to treat hematologic diseases and cancer in patients who receive stem cell transplantation. HSCs are difficult to sustain and cultivate in vitro and can be challenging to obtain from patients receiving their own stem cells due to damage from chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Sharon will optimize conditions that will allow HSCs to proliferate in culture and create various types of co-cultures that mimic the bone marrow niche using mesenchymal stem cells, which reside in the bone marrow, and growth factors in both human and murine models.

Poster presented at the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium on August 24, 2016:

Mimicking the Human Bone Marrow: Developing a 3D Co-Culture System to Increase Hematopoietic Stem Cell Proliferation

Sharon Kam¹, Minyoung Youn², Anupama Narla², Joy Y. Wu³, Fan Yang⁴, Kathleen M. Sakamoto²
[Departments of Biology¹, Pediatrics², Endocrinology³, and Bioengineering⁴, Stanford University]