Research Summary

The goal of our lab is to develop new models of hematopoietic diseases that will facilitate our understanding of their genetic basis and development of novel treatments using high throughput screening of whole organisms.

To this end we use the zebrafish model system.  Zebrafish are small, hardy freshwater fish that have the unique feature that their embryos are completely transparent. Blood development occurs extremely rapidly within the developing fish and all blood lineages identified in humans can also be found in zebrafish.  Furthermore the transcriptional programs that result in the generation of blood cells are highly conserved with that in mammals. Unbiased screens for abnormal blood development in zebrafish have resulted in the identification of genes that have subsequently been determined as disease genes in humans underscoring the power of this system. Our lab studies blood diseases including Diamond-Blackfan Anaemia and myelodysplastic syndrome.