Jason M. Butler

Dr. Butler is the Director of Stem Cell Therapeutics and Professor of Medical Sciences at the Center for Discovery and Innovation at Hackensack Meridian Health, as well as an Associate Professor at Georgetown University. Dr. Butler obtained his B.S. in Zoology from the University of Florida in 2001 and continued his graduate education at UF where he completed his Ph.D. in stem cell biology in 2005. Dr. Butler completed his postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Shahin Rafii in stem cell and vascular biology at Weill Cornell Medical College in 2011.

Dr. Butler’s laboratory is dedicated to understanding the role of bone marrow endothelial cells (BMECs) in establishing unique instructive vascular niche cells that produce the correct milieu and stoichiometry of growth factors to support hematopoiesis during physiological aging and hematopoietic regeneration following hematopoietic insults, such as chemotherapy and inflammation. Research from Dr. Butler’s laboratory has shown that BMECs are indispensable for supporting hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) self-renewal and differentiation into lineage-committed progeny. Notably, they have recently demonstrated that aged BMECs can instruct young HSCs to function as aged HSCs, whereas young BMECs can rejuvenate aged HSCs. Building upon these findings, the Butler laboratory has identified the critical signaling pathways altered within the aged endothelial niche that impair their instructive capacity to support HSCs and hematopoiesis. They have also demonstrated that as little as one dose of sublethal chemotherapy leads to significant damage to the BM vascular niche and that regeneration of the vascular system is crucial for the recovery of the hematopoietic compartment. Dr. Butler has published data demonstrating that infusion of BMECs can restore and protect an aged BM microenvironment and improve the functional output of aged HSCs, as well as provide widespread vascular protection, following myelosuppressive injury. Indeed, these foundational pre-clinical studies led to Angiocrine Bioscience’s Phase 1b/2 clinical trial wherein endothelium are being infused during HSC transplants to accelerate the regeneration of vascular niches following myeloablation.

The overarching goal of Dr. Butler’s research program is to gain fundamental insights into how aging interferes with proper blood vessel function within the bone marrow microenvironment, which in turn impairs the vascular system’s ability to function as a supportive niche that regulates hematopoiesis. Dr. Butler’s laboratory is aiming to deconstruct the mechanisms guiding the interactions between the blood stem cell and the bone marrow vascular niche to reveal key molecular and cellular mechanisms that negatively impact the hematopoietic and cardiovascular systems. The Butler laboratory is currently developing protocols to modulate novel anti-aging targets for therapeutic rejuvenation of hematopoietic and vascular systems to enhance longevity and health-span.