Event Date
Hanna Mikkola, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at UCLA, and a member of Broad Stem Cell Research Center (BSCRC) and the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC). She studied medicine at University of Helsinki in Finland and focused her Ph.D. thesis on genetic basis of congenital bleeding disorder Factor XIII deficiency. Dr. Mikkola’s research in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) biology began during her postdoctoral training at Lund University in Sweden, as worked with Stefan Karlsson to develop lentiviral gene transfer tools for manipulating stem cells. She continued post-doctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, with Stuart Orkin, where she studied regulators of HSC development and discovered the placenta as a previously unrecognized niche for HSC development. In 2005, Dr. Mikkola joined the faculty at UCLA, where her laboratory has focused on elucidating the molecular mechanisms governing human HSC development and self-renewal, and how these processes become dysregulated in hematologic malignancies and in culture. Dr. Mikkola serves as Co-Director of the Epigenetics, RNA, and Gene Regulation (ERGR) Program at JCCC. She is passionate about training the next generation stem cell scientists and teaches undergraduates about stem cell biology.