Serine Avagyan, MD, PhD

The goal of the lab is to understand how development of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), their clonal composition and competition, and their progeny affect initiation of clonal blood disorders. Clonal blood disorders, including malignant diseases such as myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia, are states of significant disturbance of the balanced clonal output. Focusing on the pathogenesis of pediatric and young adult MDS which are often associated with germline predisposition conditions, our research seeks to identify pathways responsible for establishing early aberrant clonal states and promoting transformation to malignancy. By using techniques of cellular barcoding to gain insight about clone-specific biology in a zebrafish model and primary human cells, our goal is to identify top vulnerabilities in clonal disorders to augment disease-directed therapy and prevent relapse of disease after stem cell transplantation, or perhaps one day prevent the development of MDS in high-risk patients. Such therapies could potentially be broadly applicable in the field of leukemogenesis beyond germline predisposition syndromes.