Description:

Recent research has capitalized on enhanced imaging modalities, murine modeling, and molecular profiling to afford greater understanding of the hematopoietic stem cell niche. This has led to the concept that hematopoietic niches, whether marrow—based or extramedullary, have crucial roles in regulating the survival, proliferation, and quiescence of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells with implications not only for normal hematopoiesis but also for malignant hematopoietic states. Discussion of how multiple niche components, both cellular and non-cellular, interact to support normal and malignant hematopoiesis will be the focus of this session.

Dr. Shahin Rafii will focus on the vascular niche contribution to hematopoiesis. He will present insights into how angiocrine factors produced by specialized vascular niches act in paracrine fashion to specify, maintain, and stimulate self-renewal of hematopoietic stem cells.

Dr. Simon Mendez-Ferrer will provide updates on nerve cell and neuroendocrine transmitter regulation of hematopoiesis based on his work regarding autonomic regulation of hematopoiesis as well as neural crest cell contributions to cellular content of the hematopoietic microenvironment.

Dr. David Scadden has pioneered work on osteoblastic niche contributions, differential metabolic dependency of normal and leukemic hematopoiesis and niche competition in hematopoietic malignancies. In this talk, he will focus on how myeloid and lymphoid lineage committed progenitor niches can be defined and how those specialized niches have potential functional impact on hematopoiesis.