SEMINAR TITLE: Beyond the Anemia: Novel Models of Ribosomal Protein Haploinsufficiency Unravel Developmental Defects in Diamond Blackfan anemia Syndrome
SYNOPSIS: Lionel Blanc is a Professor of Molecular Medicine and Pediatrics at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. His group focuses on two main axes of research (i) developmental erythropoiesis and (ii) its impairment in pathological conditions, especially Diamond Blackfan anemia (DBA), sickle cell disease (SCD), and Anemia of Inflammation (AoI).
The group is committed to understand how erythropoiesis becomes abnormal in these disorders.
“Since the bone marrow is the natural niche for erythropoiesis, we expanded our research to studies of the niche (i.e. erythroblastic islands). In addition, the crosstalk between blood and bone formation is well-established and we became flexible and I adapted our research program to the study of skeletal and hematopoietic defects in DBA (through development of novel mouse model supported by a R35 from NHLBI). One manuscript focusing on defects in mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) is undergoing revisions, and one on hematopoietic defects in DBA is in preparation.”