simply blood

To science or not to science?  Research in academia is difficult and challenging, but it is also extremely rewarding. We explore the depths of biology to discover something new and exciting. We dream of bringing new concepts to textbooks, or to discover a cure for a disease that impacts us and the people we love. We are constantly learning new things, even long after we have completed our graduate studies. Sometimes, our research goes in the direction we hoped for, but we are often blown away by new findings that challenge the field and what we learn from textbooks. We have a degree of freedom that can be difficult to achieve in other scientific career paths.  Research in academia has a lot of upsides, but like any career, it also comes with downsides. Firstly, salaries in academia are often lower than what the industry can offer us. We work a lot of extra hours that are, most of the time, unaccounted for financially. Finally, there is a constant stress of finding money to fin...

  On behalf of the Awards Committee, ISEH would like to congratulate the recipients of the 2025 ISEH Society Awards which will be presented at the  ISEH 54th Annual Scientific Meeting . Donald Metcalf Award Winner - Constanze Bonifer The recipient of the 2025 Donald Metcalf Award is Dr. Constanze ‘Conny’ Bonifer, for her outstanding work in the fields of epigenetic and gene regulatory processes regulating blood cell development and differentiation, and how these processes go astray in the development of blood cancer. Dr. Bonifer has been a pioneer and world leader in these areas and a source of inspiration and guidance for many scientists working in experimental hematology.  Dr. Bonifer started her scientific career in Germany where she completed her BSc in Cologne and her PhD in Heidelberg. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden and the National Institute of Medical Research, London, UK, Dr. Bonifer returned to Germany as an Assist...

On March 8th every year, the achievements of women are celebrated worldwide in conjunction with International Women's Day. It highlights the contributions of women in all fields and promotes equal opportunities in research and academia. We reviewed recent publications in Experimental Hematology with a specific focus on contributions from female experts in the field. Here is a brief summary of some of the articles. The special edition “Making blood: Mechanisms of early hematopoietic development” is edited by two leading experts in the field; Anna Bigas and Elaine Dzierzak 1 . The area of developmental hematology has evolved enormously the last decades. The issue features outstanding reviews covering the latest research on the emerging blood system.  The review by Alina Sommer and Elisa Gomez Perdiguero focuses on extraembryonic hematopoiesis and its role in fetal development 2 . The yolk sac is the first site of blood production in the embryo. It gives rise to transient hematopoieti...

The Ganuza lab has recently reported a germline NOTCH3 mutation, associated with vascular dementia (Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy, a.k.a. CADASIL), which is capable of driving expansion of clonal haematopoiesis. This work has made major inroads to answering questions in the role of Notch signalling regulation and how this can favour clonal haematopoiesis (a disorder still very much lacking a deep understanding of the mechanistic drivers) where only vascular dementia has been studied before. We encourage you to read this new research article and interact with the Ganuza lab in the future. Hear from what Miguel has to say below. How long have you had your lab? I started my lab in January 2020. There are currently 5 people in the lab including two PhD students and two Postdocs, from England, Greece and Spain.   What is the major research theme of your lab? Our lab is very interested in the interface between ageing, leukemia...

Publications Committee Member Alessandro Donada (Institute Curie, Paris, France) recently sat down to interview Dorien Pastoors (Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, Netherlands) and Travis Fleming (Broad Institute, Boston, USA) and discuss their recent preprints on AML Biology. Watch the brief interview and check out their preprints below.  MECOM is a master repressor of myeloid differentiation through dose control of CEBPA in acute myeloid leukemia Dorien Pastoors, Marije Havermans, Roger Mulet-Lazaro, Leonie Smeenk, Sophie Ottema, Claudia Erpelinck-Verschueren, Stanley van Herk, Maikel Anthonissen, Tim Grob, Bas J. Wouters, Berna Beverloo, Torsten Haferlach, Claudia Haferlach, Johannes Zuber, Eric Bindels, Ruud Delwel CEBPA repression by MECOM blocks differentiation to drive aggressive leukemias Travis J. Fleming, Mateusz Antoszewski, Sander Lambo, Michael C. Gundry, Riccardo Piussi, Lara Wahlster, Sanjana Shah, Fiona E. Reed, Kevin D. Dong, Joao A. Paulo, Steven P. Gygi, Claudia Mimoso, Seth...

Surprisingly, all scientists go through harsh times. Even the most successful geniuses, like Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie, said: "Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe we are gifted for something and that this must be attained." Hence, we must all expect and prepare for troubled times. I started my laboratory at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, exactly 12 years ago. After a challenging postdoc in Boston, I expected just exciting science, like my joyful years as a PhD student. As you all know, initial excitement inevitably meets reality. After more than 20 years in science, we do not talk about our troubles as much as we should; everybody is happy to share success (and we should!), but not all days are shining. Our training system focuses on the bright side, but the dark side is not confined to a far, far away galaxy – it's always lurking nearby. A scientific career ...

  This month's curated selection of preprints cover some exciting new results on the impact of microenvironment on hematopoietic progenitors, molecular targets for potential new antileukemic agents and novel approaches to long-standing questions like self-renewal and stem cell activity! As usual, if you would like your new preprint highlighted here, submit using this form. From the Simply Blood Community: Dynamic activity of Erg promotes aging of the hematopoietic system  https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.23.634563v1?rss=1 From the authors: “The expression of ETS family transcription factor Erg is temporally regulated. Impaired upregulation of Erg during the hematopoietic maturation results in persistence of juvenile phenotypes.” Path of differentiation defines human macrophage identity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.24.634694v1 This work display how human fetal liver hematopoietic stem cells generate macrophages through two distinct pathways: a ...

This week on Simply Blood, Dr. Stuart Orkin , Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, discusses strategies to being a successful scientist, balancing projects to sustain progress, and career development benchmarks for early stage investigators. Stuart Orkin, MD Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston Children's Hospital Howard Hughes Medical Institute Blog post contributed by Grant Rowe, MD, PhD (X: @bloodandtime1, Bluesky @bloodandtime.bsky.social), of the ISEH Publications Committee. Please note that the statements made by Simply Blood authors are their own views and not necessarily the  views of ISEH. ISEH disclaims any or all liability arising from any author's statements or materials.

  Patel Lab Each month, Simply Blood spotlights a lab contributing to the fields of hematology, immunology, stem cell research, cell and gene therapies, and more. Get to know groups doing cutting edge research from around the world! This month, we are featuring the Patel Lab out of the University of Utah/Huntsman Cancer Institute, USA. Can you introduce yourself briefly? I am a physician-scientist in the Division of Hematology and Hematologic Malignancies at the University of Utah/Huntsman Cancer Institute. I see patients with chronic myeloid neoplasms in clinic once a week and also attend on our inpatient leukemia service. I am originally from the Boston suburbs and was in the Chicago area for a long time for my undergraduate degree, medical school and internal medicine residency at Northwestern University. I never thought I would end up in Salt Lake City, Utah, but my husband and I have been here over 10 years now and we absolutely love it! I have a 3-year old son and another kid...

  This week on Simply Blood, Shannon McKinney-Freeman sits down with Publications Committee member John Crispino to discuss the purpose and benefits of ISEH, share advice for young investigators, and explore the future direction of ISEH and experimental hematology. Shannon McKinney-Freeman, PhD St. Jude Children's Research Hospital 2024-2025 ISEH President Blog post contributed by John Crispino, PhD, MBA  of the ISEH Publications Committee.  Please note that the statements made by Simply Blood authors are their own views and not necessarily the  views of ISEH. ISEH disclaims any or all liability arising from any author's statements or materials.

The first monthly trawl for 2025 is plentiful: 9 preprints focusing on Acute Myeloid Leukemia, but also spatial fate mapping meets barcoding, how cell fate decisions occur in hematopoietic progenitors, and more! If there's a specific preprint you enjoyed and would like to see featured, please send it to us using this form . STEM AND PROGENITOR CELLS BIOLOGY Semaphorin 4A maintains functional diversity of the hematopoietic stem cell pool https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.12.622506v1?rss=1 The authors looked at Semaphorin 4A (Sema4A), a protein produced by neutrophils and signaling through Plexin D1, able to protect myeloid-biased hematopoietic stem cells (myHSCs) from inflammatory stress, preserving their epigenetic state and regenerative capacity. In the absence of Sema4A, myHSCs exhibit inflammatory hyper-responsiveness, leading to excessive expansion, myeloid bias, and impaired function with age. Mitochondria Regulate the Cell Fate Decisions of Megakaryocyte-Erythro...