Lab Members

Principal Investigator

George Q. Daley, M.D., Ph.D.
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology

George Q. Daley, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and the Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, is an internationally recognized leader in stem cell science and cancer biology. 

Daley has been professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at HMS since 2010 and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2008. In July 2016, he became the Robert A. Stranahan Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at HMS. He previously held, as its inaugural incumbent, the Samuel E. Lux, IV Chair in Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital.

A former chief resident in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (1994-95), Daley maintained an active clinical practice in hematology/oncology at Mass General and then at Boston Children’s, until assuming his administrative role as director of the the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, a post he held until Jan. 2017.

He has served since 1995 as a member of the faculty of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), since 2004 as a founding member of the executive committee of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and since 2009 as an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and as a core faculty member of the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research at Boston Children’s.

Daley’s research focuses on the use of mouse and human disease models to identify mechanisms that underlie blood disorders and cancer. His lab aims to define fundamental principles of how stem cells contribute to tissue regeneration and repair and improve drug and transplantation therapies for patients with malignant and genetic bone marrow disease.

Beyond his research, Daley has been a principal figure in developing international guidelines for conducting stem cell research and for the clinical translation of stem cells, particularly through his work with the International Society for Stem Cell Research, for which he has served in several leadership positions, including president (2007-08). He has also testified before Congress and spoken in forums worldwide on the scientific and ethical dimensions of stem cell research and its promise in treating disease.

After earning his bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Harvard in 1982, Daley went on to earn his PhD in biology (1989) at MIT, working in David Baltimore’s laboratory at the MIT-affiliated Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

He received his MD from HMS, graduating in 1991 with the rare distinction of summa cum laude. He then pursued clinical training in internal medicine at Mass General and was a clinical fellow at Brigham and Women’s and Boston Children’s hospitals. While running a laboratory as a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute, he joined the HMS faculty as an assistant professor in 1995. He was promoted to associate professor in 2004, was named to an endowed chair at Boston Children’s in 2009 and became a full professor at HMS in 2010.

Daley's teaching efforts include serving as course director for the Molecular Medicine course at HMS and for an undergraduate course on stem cells in disease in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Earlier, for more than a decade, he led the Research in Health Sciences and Technology course in the HST program. He has trained dozens of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and is a frequent participant in seminars and grand rounds at schools and hospitals in the Boston area and beyond. In 2012 he was recognized with the HMS A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award.

Important contributions from the Daley laboratory have included the creation of customized stem cells to treat genetic immune deficiency in a mouse model (together with Rudolf Jaenisch), the differentiation of germ cells from embryonic stem cells, the generation of disease-specific pluripotent stem cells by direct reprogramming of human fibroblasts, and demonstration of the role of the LIN28/let-7 pathway in cancer. In past research, he demonstrated the central role of the BCR/ABL oncoprotein in human chronic myelogenous leukemia, work that provided critical target validation for development of Gleevec, a highly successful chemotherapeutic agent.

Daley was an inaugural winner of the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award for highly innovative research (2004). His numerous honors include the American Philosophical Society’s Judson Daland Prize for achievement in patient-oriented research, the American Pediatric Society’s E. Mead Johnson Award for contributions to stem cell research, the American Society of Hematology’s E. Donnall Thomas Prize for advances in human-induced pluripotent stem cells and the International Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Foundation’s Janet Rowley Prize for outstanding lifetime contributions to the understanding and/or treatment of the disease. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, among other professional societies.

Administration

Michael Morse
Laboratory Manager
Michael.Morseatchildrens.harvard.edu

Mike received his Bachelor's in 2006 studying Chemistry at Bridgewater State University. Since graduating he's worked under the tutelage of John Rinn and Cole Trapnell studying lincRNA biology, genomics and single-cell sequencing technologies. Mike has also worked in botulinum research, and spent time as a technician at the USDA in an entomology lab rearing a colony of invasive Asian Longhorned Beetles as well as field studies.

Aubrey Plumb
Lab Administrator
Aubrey.Plumbatchildrens.harvard.edu

Postdoctoral Fellows

Areum Han, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Areum.Hanatchildrens.harvard.edu

Areum completed her phD in the laboratory of Prof. Douglas L. Black (University of California, Los Angeles, in 2013). Her doctoral work examined questions of alternative splicing regulation using both molecular biology and computational approaches. Areum joined the Daley lab in 2014, and currently she is studying molecular mechanism of RNA-binding proteins, and their action in development and cancer.

Ran Jing, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ran.Jingatchildrens.harvard.edu

Ran earned his Ph.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina under the supervision of Dr. Stephen A. Duncan. His graduate work focused on using human pluripotent stem cells to study liver development and metabolic diseases. Ran joined the Daley lab in 2018; his research focuses on the utility of iPSC-derived T lymphocytes for cancer immunotherapy.

Rubul Mout
Research Fellow
Rubul.Moutatchildrens.harvard.edu

Rubul is a Research Fellow in the lab, affiliated to the Stem Cell Program, Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH), and BCMP department at Harvard Medical School. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and prior to joining Harvard/BCH, he was a Washington Research Foundation Innovation Fellow at the Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington. At Harvard/BCH, Dr. Mout works to engineer Hematopoietic stem cells and T cells to cure genetic diseases of blood origin using various technologies like, iPSCs, protein engineering, and gene editing. He is the co-author of more than 35 research articles and the inventor of numerous technologies in gene editing, protein design, and T-cell engineering with multiple patents. He is also the author of two books in his native language Assamese. 

 

Mohamad Najia Ali
Postdoctoral Fellow
MohamadAli.Najiaatchildrens.harvard.edu

Mohamad received his PhD in 2023 from MIT and HMS. His research is focused on creating novel technologies for temporal single-cell transcriptomic profiling in order to understand the molecular landscape guiding hematopoietic stem cell ontogeny. He received is B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. While an undergraduate, he worked in Dr. Todd McDevitt’s lab developing microencapsulation technologies to modulate the microenvironment of pluripotent stem cells. Mohamad is a recipient of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. 

Doctoral and Medical Students

Chris Li
Student

Chris is a PhD student in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard University. In the Daley Lab, he studies the mechanisms underpinning blood development and regeneration, with the ultimate objective of generating hematopoietic stem cells for disease modeling and therapeutic applications in cancer and other hematological diseases. Chris received his B.A. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology from Harvard University, where he completed his thesis research on cellular reprogramming and pluripotency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and his M.A. in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University as a Schwarzman Scholar. Chris is also a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

 

Research Assistants

Luca Hensch
Research Assistant
Luca.Henschatchildrens.harvard.edu

Luca joined the Daley Lab in July 2022 after graduating from Harvard University with an A.B. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology with a secondary in Mind Brain Behavior. As an undergraduate in the Professor Paola Arlotta’s lab, he pursued a senior thesis investigating phenotypic convergence amongst high-risk genes for autism spectrum disorder in human cortical brain organoids through bioinformatic analyses of scRNA-seq. As a research assistant, Luca helps Ran and Rubul investigate regulatory mechanisms underlying hematopoiesis and lymphopoiesis. He additionally aids in mouse husbandry and organization for the lab. In his free time, Luca enjoys swimming, playing tennis, and learning new recipes.

Martin Kononov
Research Assistant
martin.kononovatchildrens.harvard.edu

Martin joined the Daley Lab as a Research Assistant in July 2023 and works with Ran and Rubul to investigate the mechanisms of hematopoiesis and potential for stem cell therapy. He also works with Luca on maintaining and performing experimental procedures in the mouse model. Martin holds an ScB in Chemistry with honors from Brown University where he completed research in both organic chemistry/chemical biology and cardiothoracic surgery. His senior thesis investigated the effectiveness of a novel Selenium-based scavenger molecule in counteracting the in vitro toxicity of hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen peroxide. Outside the lab, Martin teaches organic chemistry and is training to become an Emergency Medical Technician. He is also an avid downhiller skier, cyclist, and private pilot.