Qing Li
University of Michigan, MI·Biology
Blood stem cells, known as hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), live in the bone marrow and produce every type of blood cell throughout life. Transplanting them can cure leukemia and immune deficiencies, and gene therapies using engineered HSCs now treat diseases such as sickle cell disease.
- Fields
Biology
Biochemistry
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
hematopoietic stem cells
blood stem cells
ex vivo expansion
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Screen a new small-molecule library using a cell-based ERAD activity reporter to find compounds that boost ERAD, the cell's system for destroying misfolded proteins.
- Test whether loss of ERAD activity, including reduced Sel1L, explains the decline of functional long-term hematopoietic stem cells during ex vivo culture.
- Determine whether restoring ERAD with Sel1L overexpression or ERAD-activating compounds improves HSC expansion in culture and blood rebuilding after transplantation.
More about the research
These therapies usually require growing HSCs in the lab. However, the cells steadily lose their stem cell abilities in culture, partly because their protein quality control breaks down.
Why it matters
Gene therapies for blood diseases such as sickle cell disease rely on growing and modifying blood stem cells in the lab. In culture, these cells lose function. Small molecules that improve protein quality control could help preserve the cells. This could improve stem cell transplantation and make gene therapy more efficient for patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Malavika Raman
Tufts University, MA·Biochemistry
Identify how UBXN1 represses translation (protein synthesis at the ribosome), testing whether it binds specific ribosomal proteins in a ubiquitin-dependent way.
Pamela Wenzel
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Biology
Test how interrupting mitochondrial maturation affects commitment of hemogenic endothelium (blood-forming vessel cells) to blood fate, using drugs, in vitro vessel-mimicking platforms and cardiac mutant mice.
Tom A Rapoport
Harvard University, MA·Biochemistry
Determine how misfolded glycoproteins, proteins carrying sugar chains, are delivered to the Hrd1 complex and moved from the ER interior across the membrane, building on cryo-electron microscopy structures.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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