• Professor of Medicine
• Professor of Pediatrics
• Professor of Microbiology & Immunology
• Director of Flow Cytometry Resource Facility
  
• Campus Address: R4 202
• Telephone: (317) 274-3589
• E-mail: esrour@iupui.edu

Training:
• B.Sc., 1979: American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
• Ingenieur Agricole., 1979: American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
• M.Sc., 1981: American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
• Ph.D., 1986: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL.
• Post Doctoral, 1986-1989: Indiana University.

Summary of the focus of research:
Stem cell biology including cells of hematopoietic origin and candidate adult pluripotent stem cells from other tissues. Special emphasis is focused on the use of stem cells in transplantation and tissue repair.

Description and summary of research focus of the laboratory:
The research program in Dr. Srour's laboratory has focused on the characterization and biology of human hematopoietic stem cells and their use in bone marrow transplantation and as efficient vehicles for retroviral mediated somatic gene transfer. The laboratory is also interested in examining the specificity and mechanisms involved in directed homing of stem cells to the bone marrow following transplantation and during ontogeny. In the last few years we also began investigating the pluripotential transdifferentiation capacity of other stem cells present in different mammalian tissues.

Ongoing projects:
1) Examination of the relationship between cell cycle status of primitive hematopoietic progenitor cells and its effect on engraftment and maintenance of bone marrow repopulating potential. An interesting recent finding in our laboratory is that mitotic quiescence, a hallmark of hematopoietic function of stem cells from adult tissues, is not required among similar fetal cells or those isolated from umbilical cord blood. The nature of these differences between pre-and neonatal sources of stem cells and adult tissues and how it may impact the utility of these cells in clinical transplantation and gene therapy is now the focus of research in one of the projects in the laboratory. To investigate these issues, in vivo and in vitro assays including microarray analyses are employed.   

2) Involvement of adhesion molecules and homing receptors in trafficking and migration of hematopoietic stem cells between different hematopoietic sites during ontogeny and in directing homing of transplanted stem cells to the bone marrow are investigated both in vitro and in vitro. Also relevant changes in expression of these molecules in relation to cell cycle progression and bone marrow repopulating potential are examined. Finally in these series of studies, the behavior of stem cells immediately after homing to the bone marrow is examined to determine how that impacts the long-term engraftment potential of these cells.

3) In the third area of research, the transdifferentiation capacity of pluripotent stem cells isolated from different mammalian tissues is evaluated. We recently identified a unique phenotype of pluripotent stem cells that have been detected in 6 different murine tissues. Cells from all sites remarkably differentiated into hematopoietic cells when transplanted into appropriately conditioned recipients. The exact nature, origin and the full potential of these cells, along with determination of whether these cells are capable of clonal transdifferentiation into multiple tissue lineages are now the subject of intense investigations in the laboratory.

Publications
Jetmore A, Plett PA, Tong X, Wolber FM, Breese R, Abonour R, Orschell-Traycoff CM, Srour EF. Homing efficiency, cell cycle kinetics and survival of quiescent and cycling human CD34+ cells transplanted into conditioned NOD/SCID mice. Blood 99(5):1585-1593, 2002.

Wilpshaar J. Bhatia M. Kanhai HHH, Breese R. Heilman DK, Johnson CS, Falkenburg JHF, Srour EF. Engraftment potential of human fetal hematopietic cells in NOD/SCID mice is not restricted to mitotically quiescent cells. Blood 100(1): 120-127, 2002.

Howell CJ, Yoder MC, Srour EF . Hematopoietic potential of murine skeletal muscle-derived CD45-Sca-1+c-kit- cells. Experimental Hematology 30 (8): 915-924, 2002.

Haneline LS, Li X, Ciccone SLM, Hong P, Yang Y, Broxmeyer HE, Lee S-H, Orazi A, Srour EF , Clapp DW. Retroviral-mediated expression of recombinant Fancc enhances the repopulating ability of Fancc -/- hematopoietic stem cells and decreases the risk of Clonal evolution. Blood 101(4):1299-1307, 2003.

Broxmeyer HE,   Srour EF , Hangoc G, Cooper S, Anderson SA, Bodine DM. Highr efficiency recovery of functional hematopoietic progenitor and stem cells from human cord blood cryopreserved for 15 years. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 100(2):645-650, 2003.

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