ERC Synergy grant to produce blood stem cells in the lab

Gerald de Haan and his team: Liza Dijkhuis, Arthur Svendsen, Simon Rouschop, Ana Vallone Orlandin, Helena Kooi, Edurne Solabarietta

With 3 other teams of researchers, Sanquin has been awarded a European ERC Synergy grant of 10 million euro to produce blood-forming stem cells in the lab. 

At present, blood-forming stem cells are isolated from matching donors for transplantation in patients who suffer from blood diseases. Too often, a suitable stem cell donor cannot be found.

At Sanquin the group of professor Gerald de Haan is involved in the project: “Our consortium aims to discover the cellular and molecular signals that blood-forming stem cells require to emerge, expand, and function. With our research proposal MakingBlood we want to establish methods and engineer tools to produce transplantable stem cells in a dish, derived from pluripotent stem cell sources. Finally, we will engineer bioreactors which will allow robust production of stem cells.”

This European project will contribute to our ambition to offer off-the-shelf, donor-independent treatment options for all patients who require a stem cell transplantation.

The other participants of the consortium are  located across Europe: Anna Bigas (Barcelona), Cristina Pina (London), and Cecilia Sahlgren (Eindhoven and Turku) .