Current Research and Scholarly Interests
I am a pediatric hematologist-oncologist with special interest in the niche of diseases that intersect immune dysfunction, primary immunodeficiency and bone marrow failure. My clinical practice focuses on pediatric patients requiring a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, patients with DiGeorge Syndrome and patients with genetic immune diseases presenting with autoimmunity. As a physician-scientist, I strive to advance our insights into the mechanisms leading to immunodeficiency, autoimmunity and tolerance on a molecular level and to translate our research into novel targeted therapies patients.
My work is a natural extension of my clinical training in pediatric hematology-oncology combined with my scientific background in immunology and microbiology. After completing my clinical training at Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I joined the laboratory of Luigi D. Notarangelo in the division of immunology, Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Stem Cell Institute, where I have acquired skills in the field of reprogramming, tissue engineering and gene correction. In my laboratory, we now use iPSC-based disease models to study how defects in mitochondrial metabolism and oxidative stress affect hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell development and cell death with the goal of identifying therapeutic targets. A separate focus of my laboratory is devoted to understanding the thymic developmental defects in DiGeorge syndrome.
