A major focus of the laboratory involves studies of erythropoiesis in real-time as stem cells undergo erythroid commitment and differentiation. It is hypothesized that these studies will be useful for translational research aimed at malaria, hemoglobinopathies, anemia, leukemia, and iron pathologies. These studies have developed over several years with a primary focus upon the use of flow cytometry to identify, characterize and isolate the developmentally-staged cells. Flow cytometry has become sufficiently robust in recent years to provide analyses beyond the simple identification of the cells to include transcription, organelle development, and membrane specialization. Once purified, molecular biology applications have been developed for transcriptome analyses and quantitative analyses in single cells. Further, these approaches have been modified to include analyses of erythrocytes sampled directly patient volunteers. Based upon interests in hemoglobin regulation, a genomics project was undertaken to determine differences between the fetal and adult reticulocyte transcriptome. Once candidate genes are identified that may possess increased clinical relevance, the analyses are focused upon gene discovery and characterization.
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