HMS Fellowship Program in Transfusion Medicine - Participating Faculty

Contact information
New Research Building
77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Rm 652D
Boston, MA 02115
Phone: 617-525-4413
FAX: 617-525-4422
BWH pager: 39150

Education
BA, 1991, University of Georgia
MD PhD, 2001, University of Virginia
Clinical Pathology Residency, 2001-2004, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Fellow in Transfusion Medicine, 2004-2005, Harvard Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine

Research Interests
Our group studies self-renewal in hematopoietic stem cells as well as memory T cells. We are interested in discovering the molecular pathways employed by these cells that allow them to live in our blood system for our lifetimes. In the case of hematopoietic stem cells, their self-renewal is essential for the continued daily production of new blood cells, and further serves as the basis for successful bone marrow transplantation. In the case of memory T cells, their self-renewal is the basis of our bodies' ability to remember previous infections, and serves as the basis for successful vaccination. In particular, we develop and use mouse model systems to investigate the role of various signaling molecules in stem cells and T cells. A second focus of my lab will be to apply recent advances in highly-sensitive, comparative, quantitative mass spectrometry to identify post-translational protein modifications involved in self-renewal. Towards that end, we are using unbiased phospho-proteomics to identify the changes in signaling pathways downstream of the major self-renewal signals in mouse embryonic stem cells as well as memory T cells. These proteomics studies are done in close collaboration with Jarrod Marto, director of the Blias Proteomics Center at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Our proteomic findings will be used to generate novel mouse model systems to further study the molecular pathways involved in self-renewal.