PI's: Prof. Dr. Christian Peschel, Prof. Dr. Hans-Werner Mewes
PhD Candidate: Baiba Vilne, M.Sc.

The objective of this study is to model how hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) behave in their microenvironment with regard to self-renewal and differentiation. This model could be applied to understand the behavior of tumor stem cells and leukemic stem cells. The project is based at the TUM university medical center in cooperation with the Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at Helmholtz Center München.

Hematopoiesis is a tightly regulated complex process, resulting in the production of billions of new blood cells each day. Dysregulation of this process leads to severe diseases, including leukemia. For the main part, this process takes place in the bone marrow, where a limited number of stem cells are regulated to divide and differentiate by surrounding cells, the microenvironment. Recently, disregulation of this microenvironment has also been associated with myeloproliferative disease. Microarray analyses have allowed the identification of stem cell and microenvironment signatures. How these two components collaborate to regulate hematopoiesis, has, however, not been studied. In the present project, we aim to combine cocultures of stem cells and microenvironment cells with microarray analyses of gene expression.

The changes in gene expression over time will be analyzed in both HSC and stromal cells. This complex of data will be used to propose a model of stem cell regulation and disregulation, which allows predictions of stem cell behaviour under different circumstances. The project is based at the TUM University Medical Center in cooperation with the Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at Helmholtz Center Munich.