Our lab focuses on understanding how inflammatory stressors, like infection, change blood production and bone marrow function. The bone marrow contains our blood stem cells and produces trillions of cells each day. These cells are necessary to bring oxygen to our organs, maintain vascular hemostasis, and support host defense against invading pathogens.
The hematopoietic system is maintained by the bone marrow, which produces billions of cells each day. The hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) supports hematopoiesis throughout life, as it is able to self-renew, generating more stem cells, and produce more differentiated multipotent progenitors (MPPs). Under normal conditions, HSCs are maintained in a dormant state, and their daughter cells, the MPPs, are responsible for the daily production of lineage-specific cells (such as neutrophils and red blood cells). While a great deal is known about the mechanisms governing the generation of hematopoietic cells under homeostatic conditions, how these processes are altered by infection and inflammation are unclear. The process of “demand-adapted hematopoiesis” is important for generating cells necessary for combating infection, but also contributes to pathogenesis by producing cells that augment inflammation.
