Goldfarb Lab Research Opportunities

Professor of Pathology
ang3x@virginia.edu

Laboratory Interests:

Mechanisms of differentiation in hematologic cell lineages.

Our lab has maintained two major, extramurally-funded areas of investigation in the field of hematology.  The first consists of the regulatory pathways involved in programming the early stages of megakaryocytic differentiation.  The second consists of the mechanisms underlying erythropoietin resistance in certain types of anemias.  The common thread linking all of the research projects over the years has been the study of mechanisms underlying hematopoietic lineage commitment, in particular the divergence of the erythroid and megakaryocytic lineages from a common progenitor cell.  These studies started out as basic investigations in developmental biology but have recently taken a translational turn.  The project on megakaryocyte differentiation has identified a pathway relevant to: a) the pathogenesis of human megakaryocyte leukemias, and b) the defective megakaryocytic differentiation seen in umbilical cord blood progenitors.

 The project on erythropoietin signaling has a uncovered: a) a novel pathway for iron regulation of erythropoietin signaling, b) an associated compound (isocitrate) that alleviates anemia in an animal model of chronic inflammation, and c) a new erythropoietin signaling branch that accounts for previously unexplained effects of this clinically important cytokine.