This condition, termed ​“clonal hematopoiesis”, is characterized by the presence of stem cell clones harboring certain somatic mutations, primarily in genes involved in epigenetic regulation of hematopoiesis. Clonal hematopoiesis is prevalent in the aging population and increases the risk of not only blood cancer, but also cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. Understanding the biology of these mutations and how they contribute to the development of cancer and other age-related diseases is the current focus of work in the lab. These studies utilize genetic and clinical information from large population-based cohorts to understand the impact of clonal hematopoiesis in humans. The effect of the mutations causing clonal hematopoiesis is also studied in human and mouse tissues through a combination of genomic profiling, functional assays, and mouse models of disease.

Siddhartha Jaiswal is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Pathology. He also obtained undergraduate, medical, and doctorate degrees at Stanford. His thesis work in Irv Weissman’s lab focused on understanding the role of the innate immune signaling ligand, CD47, in macrophage tumor immunosurveillance. This work formed the rationale for the therapeutic targeting of CD47 in human cancer, which is currently in clinical trials at Stanford and elsewhere.

Dr. Jaiswal subsequently completed residency and fellowship training in pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. As a post-doctoral fellow in Benjamin Ebert’s laboratory at Harvard and the Broad Institute, he identified a common, pre-malignant state for blood cancers by reanalysis of large sequencing datasets. This condition, termed ​“clonal hematopoiesis”, is characterized by the presence of stem cell clones harboring certain somatic mutations, primarily in genes involved in epigenetic regulation of hematopoiesis. Clonal hematopoiesis is prevalent in the aging population and increases the risk of not only blood cancer, but also cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. Understanding the biology of these mutations and how they contribute to the development of cancer and other age-related diseases is the current focus of work in his lab.