Research

Bone tissue belongs to a small group of privileged adult tissues that display true regeneration potential by healing without scar formation.  It also contains the bone marrow that houses the hematopoietic stem cell system, responsible for continuously regenerating blood tissue throughout one’s lifetime.  These attributes are exploited clinically through bone grafts and blood transfusions which are the two most common transplantation procedures that impact countless patients daily.   However the chronic shortage of blood and bone tissue stresses the need to engineer bone and bone marrow tissue. The Stem Cell Engineering Lab strives to generate bone marrow tissue in vitro to model and contribute to our understanding of bone biology and identify drugs that promote hematopoietic stem cell regeneration, bone healing as well as selectively-toxic agents to cancer stem cells.