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. My research is focused on understanding how these progenitors differentiate along the different blood lineages and unveiling the functional and transcriptional heterogeneity within these populations. Furthermore, hematopoietic progenitors are the normal cellular counterparts of Acute Myeloid Leukemia-propagating cells. Therefore, my research interest is also to understand the molecular mechanisms deregulated in normal progenitors, which result in differentiation block in leukemia. 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 05/2008 till 06/2013 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'.