Dr. Olga Guryanova and her team study how mature cells in the blood are being made in health and disease. Blood production starts with the blood stem cells, known as hematopoietic stem cells, that reside in the bone marrow. In a healthy person, approximately 100 to 500 billion new blood cells are produced a day, which is about 2 million mature cells every second. If this process gets derailed, it can lead to blood diseases including leukemia, which is a blood cancer.
These different types of mature cells, including red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, are produced by a relatively small number of stem cells in the bone marrow that are essential for maintaining the blood over the lifetime. However, later in life these cells become old and tired, which may lead to a decline in their functionality. As we age, the probability of accumulating mutation in the genome—mistakes in the DNA—increases, which can lead to various health issues such as leukemia. The research in the Guryanova Lab focuses on Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), which is the most common type of leukemia in adults, and on pre-leukemia, which leads to abnormalities in the immune system.
The research done by Dr. Guryanova and her team has identified a specific type of mutation that can render leukemia cells less responsive to anti-cancer treatment, leading to a poorer prognosis. The Guryanova Lab is developing new ways to mitigate the negative consequences of the presence of mutated stem cells and to treat leukemia more effectively. At the same time, they have discovered that even before leukemia develops, these abnormal blood cells with the mutation can lead to other health problems by disrupting the immune system and by promoting obesity and diabetes. The current research focuses on the details of decreasing some adverse effects of the mutation and on development of new treatments.