Nina Cabezas Wallscheid is a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Immunolobiology and Epigenetics and at the Institute for Translational Medicine in ETH Zurich. Her laboratory aims to understand how dormancy is regulated with the ultimate goal of maintaining a lifelong healthy hematopoietic stem cell pool. They recently discovered how a single dietary metabolite, vitamin A, controls stem cell function by driving epigenetic and transcriptional changes, and found stem cell dormancy in human adult hematopoiesis, both in healthy and aberrant conditions. She is pursuing interdisciplinary projects that include dietary treatments, and primary human patient material in combination with extensive bioinformatic analysis. The laboratory is also developing state-of-the-art omics (transcriptome, metabolome, chromatin accessibility, histone modifications) and single-cell methods that have revealed novel metabolic and epigenetic features of rare cell populations, including dormant hematopoietic stem cells. The laboratory’s ultimate goal is to develop nutritional strategies to prevent the thus-far irreversible hematopoietic system decline upon aging, while advancing emerging omics fields. Nina Cabesaz Wallscheid is a EMBO Young Investigator and recipient of ERC Starting and ERC Consolidator Grants.
Lab Website:Â https://www.ie-freiburg.mpg.de/cabezas