We have a long-standing interest in understanding hematopoiesis using Drosophila melanogaster as a model system. By combining multidisciplinary and integrated approaches encompassing Development, Genetics, Cell Biology and Molecular Biology, we aim at elucidating how blood cell development/formation is orchestrated and modulated under normal and pathological situations. Particularly, we aim at understanding how homeostatic blood cell production is regulated under normal conditions and in response to an immune stress. This includes determining how blood cell fates are specified, which mechanisms control the blood cell progenitor population maintenance versus différentiation, the dialogues between micro-environment/niche cells and these progenitors, and how an emergency hematopoiesis is induced in response to parasite infestations in order to develop an adapted cellular immune response.
Keywords : Hematopoiesis, microenvironment/niche, lymph gland, stem-progenitor cells, blood cells, cardiac/vascular cells, Drosophila, signaling pathways, regulatory networks, cell plasticity.