Dr. Larisa Balaian, PH.D.

Associate Scientist
Cancer Center,
University of California San Diego, California, USA

Dr. Balaian has excellence in the stem cell biology with expertise of blood related diseases and blood cancer. She has 20 years of working experience with Stem cell and cancer. Her research has been focused on developing the mesenchymal stem cells model that allows the investigation of the Hematopoietic Stem cell (HSC) and leukemia stem cells homing effects and regulation of their growth. HSC as well as leukemia stem cells and metastatic tumor cells reside in bone marrow niches to receive growth, survival and differentiation signals. Their localization and migration between niches depends on cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, which result from the cooperation of cytokines, chemokines and adhesion molecules. She leads studies of migration, adhesion, proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, cytokine production and underlying gene expression and signal transduction to make it more effective for stem cell clinical therapy for blood diseases.