- How are human blood stem cells different from other blood cell types?
- What is the impact of age and disease on human blood stem cell function? For this they measure human blood stem cell responses to a number of signals, compare them to other blood cells and identify specific genes that regulate their behaviour. We also study what goes wrong in blood stem cells when there is inflammation, in the elderly and during the early stages of cancer development.
Understanding how blood formation occurs in humans in all of these contexts will help design new therapies against a range of diseases.
Research Focus
The human body makes one trillion blood cells per day. These include red blood cells, platelets and immune cells, which all provide vital physiological functions. Rare blood stem cells, also called haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are responsible for life-long blood production. Their function must be tightly regulated to continuously produce blood in accordance with the demands of our organism throughout our lifespan, while also ensuring recovery from infections and injuries. HSC are very different from all other blood cell types and have unique functional properties, such as their infrequent division and their capacity to give rise to all blood cell types. The Laurenti laboratory aims to understand blood formation throughout a human lifetime. The lab studies human HSC and progenitor cells using single cell biology techniques: functional single cell assays and single cell -omics technologies. The lab is currently investigating the unique molecular and functional properties of human HSC and progenitors across the human lifespan with a particular focus on ageing.
Another area of interest is the study of HSCs' cellular and molecular responses to stress, with the goal to improve HSC ex vivo expansion and gene therapy protocols.
Understanding how the cellular and molecular composition of the HSC/ progenitor compartment changes in stress conditions and throughout a human lifetime has important implications for regenerative medicine and treatment of blood cancers.
To Apply:
We encourage prospective PhD students to reach out directly to Professor Laurenti, el422@cam.ac.uk to discuss potential projects and supervision.
Applicants must secure the support of a Supervisor within a laboratory before submitting an application. Please contact the project Supervisor(s) to discuss potential supervision, proposed research project and funding options, which should then be used to write your formal application.
Applications will be submitted to the 'PhD in Stem Cell Biology' and full course details can be found at https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/directory/blscpdscp
Funding Notes
This is not a core-funded PhD programme, and candidates are therefore required to secure their own funding.
Please visit Postgraduate Funding | Cambridge Stem Cell Institute for funding available via the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute.
Funding options should be discussed on an individual basis with the proposed Supervisor before submitting an application.
Applicants are recommended to apply to the University funding scheme by ticking 'Yes - I wish to apply for funding ' in the funding section of the Applicant Portal, by the funding deadline. You will then automatically be considered for any University funding that you are eligible for.
To learn more about how to apply for University funding, please visit Postgraduate funding | Postgraduate Study
