Ali Farrokhi
Postdoctoral Fellow
Understanding how Childhood Infection-Induced Immune Response Can Target Leukemia-initiating Cells
Each year, a particular type of blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) accounts for one-quarter of the cases of childhood cancer diagnosed in Canada. Children between 3 and 5 years of age are most commonly affected by ALL. Despite significant improvement in patient outcomes with chemotherapy, not all children are cured and ALL still causes 10% of childhood cancer deaths.
It has been discovered that the abnormal cells, known as preleukemia cells, that cause leukemia in children are present in most newborns that go on to develop ALL and also in many who do not. Understanding what stops leukemia arising in these healthy children with preleukemia may provide clues of how to eradicate the leukemia cells that remain in some patients after chemotherapy.
A number of studies have reported a link between infections in infancy and risk of getting childhood ALL . We speculated that this might be the result of the effects of the immune responses to infection on the preleukemia cells and have studied this using mice that develop ALL. We have found that the immune responses can very efficiently kill preleukemia and leukemia cells, but only when the infection occurs in very young mice. We seek to identify the mechanism behind this protective response with the goal of developing a new treatment for ALL in children.
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Publications
- Evaluation of Detergent-Free and Detergent-Based Methods for Decellularization of Murine Skin. (2018)
Tissue engineering. Part A, - Therapeutic Use of Stem Cells in Treatment of Burn Injuries. (2018)
Journal of burn care & research : official publication of the American Burn Association, - IDO-Expressing Fibroblasts Protect Islet Beta Cells From Immunological Attack and Reverse Hyperglycemia in Non-Obese Diabetic Mice. (2016)
Journal of cellular physiology, - Oocyte maturation and expression pattern of follicular genes during in-vitro culture of vitrified mouse pre-antral follicles. (2015)
Gene expression patterns : GEP, - THERAPY OF ENDOCRINE DISEASE: Islet transplantation for type 1 diabetes: so close and yet so far away. (2015)
European journal of endocrinology, - Inhibition of TGFβ signaling promotes ground state pluripotency. (2014)
Stem cell reviews and reports, - Stauprimide Priming of Human Embryonic Stem Cells toward Definitive Endoderm. (2014)
Cell journal, - Critical Role of Transforming Growth Factor Beta in Different Phases of Wound Healing. (2013)
Advances in wound care, - Effect of ovarian tissue vitrification method on mice preantral follicular development and gene expression. (2013)
Theriogenology, - Enhanced maintenance of rat islets of Langerhans on laminin-coated electrospun nanofibrillar matrix in vitro. (2013)
Cell biology international, - IDO expressing fibroblasts promote the expansion of antigen specific regulatory T cells. (2013)
Immunobiology, - Quantitative expression of developmental genes, Pou5f1 (Oct4) and Mest (Peg1), in vitrified mouse embryos. (2013)
Iranian journal of reproductive medicine, - Treatment of human embryonic stem cells with different combinations of priming and inducing factors toward definitive endoderm. (2013)
Stem cells and development, - Appropriate reference gene selection for real-time PCR data normalization during rat mesenchymal stem cell differentiation. (2012)
Cellular and molecular biology (Noisy-le-Grand, France), - Expression of maturation genes and their receptors during in vitro maturation of sheep COCs in the presence and absence of somatic cells of cumulus origin. (2012)
Theriogenology, - Inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3 promotes efficient derivation of pluripotent stem cells from neonatal mouse testis. (2012)
Human reproduction (Oxford, England), - Simultaneous suppression of TGF-β and ERK signaling contributes to the highly efficient and reproducible generation of mouse embryonic stem cells from previously considered refractory and non-permissive strains. (2012)
Stem cell reviews and reports, - Feeder- and serum-free establishment and expansion of human induced pluripotent stem cells. (2010)
The International journal of developmental biology, - Safety and efficacy of granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor administration following autologous intramuscular implantation of bone marrow mononuclear cells: a randomized controlled trial in patients with advanced lower limb ischemia. (2010)
Cytotherapy, - IVM and gene expression of sheep cumulus-oocyte complexes following different methods of vitrification. (2009)
Reproductive biomedicine online, - Differential effect of activin on mouse embryonic stem cell differentiation in insulin-secreting cells under nestin-positive selection and spontaneous differentiation protocols. (2007)
Cell biology international, - Differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into hepatocytes in 2D and 3D culture systems in vitro. (2006)
The International journal of developmental biology, - Generation of new human embryonic stem cell lines with diploid and triploid karyotypes. (2006)
Development, growth & differentiation,
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