Dr. Hanna Mikkola, a member of the UCLA Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cell Research and the Jonsson Comprehensive Center, has been named the 2013 recipient of the McCulloch and Till Award by the Society for Hematology and Stem Cells (ISEH). She is an associate professor of molecular, cell, and developmental biology in the life sciences.
Established in 2004 in honor of Ernest McCulloch and James Till, who are known as the “fathers” of stem cell science, this award recognizes junior scientists in the field of experimental hematology and stem cells. The award is given annually to one scientist who is nominated and selected as an outstanding early career investigator in the field.
Mikkola received the award at the ISEH annual meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Sunday. “I am extremely honored and humbled to receive this award,” Mikkola said, “it is very gratifying to receive recognition from my fellow scientists that we have advanced stem cell science in the field of experimental hematology. This has been made possible through teamwork of many enthusiastic and dedicated lab members and collaborators that I have had the pleasure to work with."
The driving force behind Mikkola’s research is to improve leukemia treatment by understanding the origin of hematopoietic or blood-producing stem cells (HSCs). Mikkola says she can best contribute to that mission by uncovering the biological mechanisms that control the development of HSCs with the ultimate goal of establishing new sources of the cells for bone-marrow transplantation to treat leukemia.
Several important discoveries related to blood-forming cells have been made in her laboratory over the past eight years that may prove critical to developing a new generation of stem-cell-based therapies to treat blood and heart diseases. For one, her team solved a longstanding mystery of the origin of blood stem cells with the discovery that these cells are generated and nurtured in the placenta. It also identified critical cues in the placental hematopoietic niche that ensure that blood stem and progenitor cells do not differentiate prematurely.
Mikkola has also received awards acknowledging her cutting-edge scientific research from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, American Society of Hematology and V-Foundation for Cancer Research. Her work is funded currently by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.
