Camille Lefebvre

Haematopoiesis is a crucial lifelong process of blood cell production and renewal. This cascade of cell regeneration takes place in the bone marrow, where haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) play an essential role. HSCs, characterised by their ability to self-renew, are important for maintaining haematopoietic homeostasis. 

HSC transplantation is a common practice in the treatment of various pathologies, both haematological and non-haematological. The aim is to develop a novel graft from a little-explored source of HSC: peripheral blood. This approach requires ex vivo expansion of HSCs to increase their quantity and graft capacity. In order to achieve this, the internship will focus on modulating intracellular calcium concentration during culture, exploring its impact on mitophagy (cell recycling process) and HSC expansion. To this end, phenotyping by cytometry will be carried out in order to assess cell expansion, characterisation of mitophagy by confocal fluorescence microscopy and transcriptional analysis (RT-PCR) and assessment of cell ageing.