Dr Amanda Evans

The long-term goal is the in-vitro production of platelets for transfusion. We have developed a highly efficient, GMP-compatible methodology to produce megakaryocytes(MKs), from which platelets are derived, using human pluripotent stem cells. In addition we use CRISPR technology to produce “universal” platelets by HLA deletion from hESC and iPSC lines from the UK stem cell Bank (UKSCB), Catapult and HiPSC. Another interest is to understand the mechanism by which our programming technology dictates somatic cell identity on the stem cells. By comparing MKs derived from human fetal liver, cord blood and peripheral blood with those from stem cells we are also interested in the elusive switch from embryonic to adult phenotype, which hampers hPSC technology.