Madeline Mayday is currently a second year graduate student in Dr. Diane Krause’s lab. Her work focuses on the effect of this fusion protein on normal and malignant hematopoiesis with the goal of elucidating the mechanism by which it promotes leukemogenesis. AMKL is a rare leukemia characterized by the improper development of megakaryocytes. In neonates, AMKL is most often caused by a genetic translocation resulting in the RBM15-MKL1 fusion protein.
Madeline recently worked on a review paper with the Krause lab, “Current understanding of human megakaryocytic-erythroid progenitors and their fate determinants,” which was published in the journal of Current Opinions in Hematology. The paper is a “state-of-the-field” review about the megakaryocyte-erythroid progenitor (MEP), a bipotent cell that ultimately gives rise to red blood cells and platelets. Understanding this progenitor population and its differentiation process is important because dysregulation of the MEP can lead to diseases like anemia, thrombocytopenia, and leukemia. The paper comments on the current understanding of factors affecting fate decision, various enrichment strategies, and ongoing debates in the field of MEP biology.
Madeline is also a part of Yale’s Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP). She co-organizes MRSP student and faculty lunches, inviting diverse faculty to discuss their experience in clinical and translational medicine. Typically, MRSP lunches happen 2-3 times per semester, but this semester they are TBD. Last semester, the students in MRSP had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Choukri Mamoun to discuss science outside of academia, Dr. Pamela Kunz to discuss women in science and gender-based discrimination, and Dr. Akiko Iwasaki and Dr. Albert Ko to discuss science communication and the CT COVID response.
Submitted by Liz Pantani on May 27, 2022