Bilyana Stoilova

Since 09/2013 I have been a postdoctoral researcher at Prof Paresh Vyas' research group at the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. Human hematopoietic progenitors downstream of the hematopoietic stem cells remain poorly defined and incompletely purified. Hence, my research was initially focused on understanding how these progenitors differentiate along the different blood lineages and unveiling the functional and transcriptional heterogeneity within these populations. Hematopoietic progenitors are the normal cellular counterparts of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) propagating cells. I want to understand the molecular mechanisms deregulated in normal progenitors, which result in differentiation block in leukemia. Only 15% of AML patients survive and most die within 9 months of diagnosis. There is an unmet need for new therapies and my work is focused on understanding the mechanisms of response and resistance to targeted AML therapies. To answer these questions I use primarily single cell assays, including flow cytometry analyses and sorting, mass cytometry, single cell and limit dilution in vitro cultures, single cell multiplex qPCR, single cell RNA-sequencing and single cell genotyping.

Before I joined Vyas Research Group, from 2008 till 2013 I was a scientist at the Cell Differentiation and Tumorigenesis research group headed by Prof Achim Leutz and was awarded a PhD fellowship from the International PhD Program at Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine and Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. PhD thesis title: 'Structural plasticity and post-translational modifications of C/EBPb direct distinct myeloid cell fates'.