What keeps some immune systems youthful and effective in warding off age-related diseases? In a new paper published in Cellular & Molecular Immunology, USC Stem Cell scientist Rong Lu and her collaborators point the finger at a small subset of blood stem cells, which make an outsized contribution to maintaining either a youthful balance or Read More…
Category: News
USC’s Rong Lu and Caltech’s Michael B. Elowitz win the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award for their new approach to study blood and immune cell production in bone marrow
Is it possible to study the production of blood and immune cells inside the bone marrow? For the first time ever, the answer is yes, thanks to a new approach pioneered by USC Stem Cell scientist Rong Lu and Caltech synthetic biologist Michael B. Elowitz, together with co-investigators Carlos Lois and Lior Pachter at Caltech. Read More…
Zachary Thomas receives the travel award from Santa Cruz Developmental Biology (SCDB)
Congratulations to Zachary Thomas on receiving the SCDB travel award!
Congratulations to the winners of the Broad Collaborative Challenge Grant!
Bowen Wang from the Lu lab and Yixuan (Ada) Huang from Peter Wang’s lab have been selected to receive the 2024 Broad Collaborative Challenge Grant for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows for their proposal “Integrating HSC transplantation and FUS-controllable CAR-T cell therapy.” Congratulations!
The Scientist features Lu Lab research
The Scientist recently featured research from the Lu Lab that was published in Science Advances, describing how coupling cell lineage tracking with molecular gene expression patterns can help decipher how gene activity influences immune cell production. Read more at https://www.the-scientist.com/using-genetic-cartography-to-map-cell-lineage-71854.
Wade Boohar receives the Google Alumni Award in Quantitative Biology
Congratulations to Wade Boohar on receiving the Google Alumni Award in Quantitative Biology!
USC Stem Cell study shows how gene activity modulates the amount of immune cell production in mice
As people age or become ill, their immune systems can become exhausted and less capable of fighting off viruses such as the flu or COVID-19. In a new mouse study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in Science Advances, researchers from the USC Stem Cell lab of Rong Lu Read More…
Why does a leukemic mutation not always lead to leukemia? A new clue from a mouse study at USC
Why do some people with a genetic mutation associated with leukemia remain healthy, while others with the same mutation develop the blood cancer? In a new study published in Blood, scientists from the USC Stem Cell laboratory of Rong Lu discovered a mechanism that linked a leukemic mutation to varying potentials for disease development—a discovery Read More…
Why multipotent progenitor cells matter for patients receiving bone marrow transplants
When patients receive bone marrow transplants, they are infused with complex admixtures of many different cell types with the power to regenerate their blood and immune systems. In a new study in Experimental & Molecular Medicine, scientists from the USC Stem Cell laboratory of Rong Lu share new discoveries about the influence of multipotent progenitor Read More…
Wade Boohar receives Provost’s Research Fellowship
Congratulations to Wade Boohar on receiving the Provost’s Research Fellowship!
