The formation of cells in our blood is sustained throughout our lifetime by hematopoietic stem cells. An understanding of the output and activity of individual stem cells, however, is only emerging. In my project, I will investigate clonal reconstitution dynamics and evaluate hematopoietic regeneration utilizing somatic mutations in the mitochondrial genome as natural barcodes in matching bone marrow and peripheral blood samples from patients undergoing allogenic stem cell transplantation.

Boron-containing polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) draw increasing interest due to their appealing optical and electronic features. They are promising candidates for applications in organic electronics, e.g. OLEDs, transistors and organic solar cells. This project is focused on the synthesis of new chiral organoboron PAHs and the investigation of the impact of their chiral geometry on the operation of such devices.

Somatic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations are associated with a wide range of human disorders, yet it has been difficult to reliably establish mitochondrial genotype-phenotype associations. Therefore, we aim to integrate metabolic profiling readouts with single-cell multi-omics sequencing techniques to characterise the consequences of pathogenic mtDNA mutations and increased mitochondrial mutational burden at the cellular and genomic level.