Postdoctoral positions are available in the laboratory of Dr. Sean Morrison to study the intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms that regulate stem cell self-renewal and the role these mechanisms play in cancer. Dr. Morrison is the director of Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Further information about research in Morrison lab can be found here.
Recent studies from the Morrison laboratory
Identification of the hematopoietic stem cell niche:
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Endothelial and perivascular cells maintain haematopoietic stem cells (Nature, 2012)
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Haematopoietic stem cells and early lymphoid progenitors occupy distinct bone marrow niches (Nature, 2013)
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Deep imaging of bone marrow shows non-dividing stem cells are mainly perisinusoidal (Nature, 2015)
Hematopoietic stem cell maintenance and metabolism
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Haematopoietic stem cells require a highly regulated protein synthesis rate (Nature, 2014)
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Oestrogen increases haematopoietic stem-cell self-renewal in females and during pregnancy (Nature, 2014)
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A perisinusoidal niche for extramedullary hematopoiesis in the spleen (Nature, 2015)
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Ascorbate regulates haematopoietic stem cell function and leukaemogenesis (Nature, 2017)
Adult osteogenesis and maintenance of skeletal bone mass:
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Leptin-receptor-expressing mesenchymal stromal cells represent the main source of bone formed by adult bone marrow (Cell Stem Cell, 2014)
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Clec11a/osteolectin is an osteogenic growth factor that promotes the maintenance of the adult skeleton (eLife, 2016)
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Integrin alpha11 is an Osteolectin receptor and is required for the maintenance of adult skeletal bone mass (eLife, 2019)
Mechanisms that regulate melanoma metastasis:
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Oxidative stress inhibits distant metastasis by human melanoma cells (Nature, 2015)
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Metabolic heterogeneity confers differences in melanoma metastatic potential (Nature, 2019)
