The team is part of the Eva Hellström Lindberg research group at the Center for Hematology and Regenerative Medicine (HERM).
Our research
The failure to regenerate tissue underlies a challenging health issue in elderly. A main contributor to this decline is the loss of stem cell function during aging. Despite the essential role of stem cells, it is unclear how they fail to maintain their functions during aging and disease.
I discovered a new aspect of stem cell aging in vivo: cellular enlargement. With age, stem cells increase in size leading to their functional decline. However, it is unclear how size impacts stem cell fitness. Moreover, the physiological importance of this process remains unsolved.
My research team aims to reveal how size affects hematopoietic stem cell function using mice and patient samples and to evaluate whether this mechanism is evolutionarily conserved across eukaryotes.
Ongoing research projects
Identifying cellular pathways that cause stem cell dysfunction during their enlargement. We use molecular profiling and mouse models to identify the molecular mechanisms impairing fitness of large stem cells.
Rejuvenating stem cells by preventing their enlargement. We aim to identify ways to rejuvenate stem cells by affecting their size. The goal of this project is to find ways to improve stem cell function during aging and in disease.
Does dysregulation of stem cell size promote cancer? We utilize blood stem cells from mice and humans to identify factors that facilitate leukemia in vivo and to investigate the underlying mechanisms.