GLOBAL VIEW OF BLOOD CELL DEVELOPMENT REVEALS THE PATH OF PROGRESSION
A small pool of stem cells replenishes the human body with about 200 billion new blood cells daily. But the elaborate circuitry that determines if a cell will develop into a T cell, red blood cell, or one of the nine or more other blood cell types remains largely unknown. A research team led by scientists from the Broad Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital has taken a systematic approach to help decipher this circuitry, compiling a comprehensive catalog of the factors that determine a blood cell’s fate. Their work appears in the January 21 issue of Cell.