Grant: Project Grant

This proposal aims to engineer new, affordable, and widely applicable sources of blood stem cells. These cells can produce every type of blood cell in the human body, including red blood cells and immune cells. Blood stem cells, or the mature cells derived from them, are valuable for treating various illnesses, including cancer and autoimmune disorders. However, current technical limitations result in a low supply of blood stem cells, while the demand for these therapies continues to rise. Our project will enable the production of blood stem cells and their derivatives outside of the body in scalable quantities. We will replicate the natural environment where blood stem cells develop in the body, using engineering approaches to study how different signaling factors and supplements influence their properties. Additionally, we will leverage transcription factors-genetic regulators of cell function-to direct the emergence and function of blood stem cells. We will evaluate the success of our experiments by analyzing the types and quantities of functional immune cells produced from the blood stem cells we create. To ensure our work is well-positioned for future therapeutic applications, we will develop advanced cell manufacturing methods capable of generating blood stem cells with robust immune cell generation capabilities. This project will establish an innovative pipeline for discovering and producing engineered blood stem cells, advancing the future of cell-based therapies.