PhD defence
Single-cell Dissection of Immune System Aging and Acute Myeloid Leukemia
- E.O. Karakaslar
- Date
- Tuesday 16 June 2026
- Time
- Location
-
Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden
Supervisor(s)
- Prof.dr. M.J.T. Reinders
- dr. E.B. van den Akker
- dr. M. Griffioen
Summary
Every day, our bodies make billions of new blood cells. This process, called hematopoiesis, is driven by a small group of blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow. As we age, these stem cells change. Some acquire genetic errors that allow them to grow more easily, disturb the balance of blood production, and increase the risk of diseases such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer.
In this thesis, I studied how aging and cancer-related mutations reshape blood development. To do this, I combined modern molecular techniques that measure gene activity and DNA regulation in blood cells with computational analysis and laboratory experiments. This made it possible to examine both healthy aging and leukemia in much greater detail than with traditional methods alone.
The main conclusion is that aging does not simply reduce blood cell function, but actively changes the biological programs that control it. I found that aging is linked to a loss of important immune cells, increased inflammatory activity, and clear molecular changes in specific cell types. I also showed that some treatments targeting the epigenetic machinery can expand the blood stem cell pool, which may be relevant for transplantation and gene therapy. In leukemia, I found that patients with apparently similar genetic abnormalities can still have very different disease states at the molecular level, which helps explain why they may respond differently to treatment.
These findings are socially relevant because blood cancers and age-related immune decline affect a growing part of the population. By improving our understanding of how aging and leukemia are connected, this research helps pave the way for earlier detection, better disease classification, and more personalized treatment. What makes this work special is that it bridges normal aging and cancer biology, showing that the path to leukemia can already be traced in the changing biology of aging blood.
PhD dissertations
Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.
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