My researh interest is focused primarily on embryonic and fetal blood cell formation in mice.  Two frequently cited papers from my early work describe the morphologic events that occur in the mouse yolk sac, the first site of mammalian hematopoiesis in mammals.  Primitive cells formed in the yolk sac migrate to the thymus, proliferate and differentiate into T-lymphocytes.  The events involved with the cell migration aspect of this process have been studied in my laboratory using in vitro migration assays, immunological assays, FACS analysis and sorting. and cell culture.

 

My current research effort focuses on isolating very early erythrocytes from frozen sections of E9 and E10 mouse yolk sacs using laser capture microdissection.  Confirmation that enriched cell populations have been collected is done using quantitiative RT-PCR.  RNA from these cells is then used to establish tissue- and stage-specific gene expression profiles by hybridizing the RNA to an Affymetrix GeneChip 430  2.0 array for microarray analysis.  The purpose of the research is to identify novel erythroid-specific genes that are critical in primitive erythropoiesis.