Title: On the origins and development of blood and cardiac stem cells
Subject: Developmental Genetics
Visiting Time: Sep 29 - Oct 5, 2009

Abstract:

Roger Patient is a professor of Developmental Genetics at Oxford University. He is a member of the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital. He has served for many years on MRC, Wellcome, BBSRC and medical charity panels, recently as Deputy Chair of the MRC Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board, and currently on the British Heart Foundation Chairs and Programme Grants Committee.

Adult stem cells are made during embryonic development. Whether they retain stem cell properties from pluripotent embryonic stem cell precursors or develop the programme de novo is an interesting question. Either way, they somehow find a way to resist differentiation while all about them are differentiating. By studying how these cells develop we are hoping to gain some insight into how this control is effected. Very recently we have uncovered an evolutionary relationship between the precursors of the blood and vasculature, and the precursors of the heart. Specifically we have identified a field of cells giving rise to blood and endothelium in earlier vertebrates that has been recruited into the heart field in higher vertebrates. These second heart field cells appear to have greater potential than those in the primary heart field, and may have implications for the identification and activities of adult stem cells in the heart.

Further Information:  Roger Patient...

Prof. Roger Patient