Larisa Balaian

Dr. Balaian has twenty years’ experience in stem cell biology, blood cancer, and blood-related diseases. Her research has been focused on developing the mesenchymal stem cell model that allows the investigation of the Hematopoietic Stem cell (HSC) and leukemia stem cells homing effects and regulation of their growth.

HSC as well as leukemia stem cells and metastatic tumor cells reside in bone marrow niches to receive growth, survival, and differentiation signals. Their localization and migration between niches depend on cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, which result from the cooperation of cytokines, chemokines, and adhesion molecules.

Dr. Balaian leads studies in migration, adhesion, proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, cytokine production, underlying gene expression and signal transduction to increase effectiveness for stem cell blood disease clinical therapy.