Mickie Bhatia

Mickie Bhatia leverages his expertise in stem cell biology to understand how disseminated tumor cells co-opt hematopoietic stem cell dormancy programs to survive in bone marrow niches, drawing critical parallels between normal stem cell quiescence and cancer cell dormancy. His laboratory at McMaster University has developed innovative human pluripotent stem cell-based models to study dormancy-reactivation transitions and has identified shared molecular programs between hematopoietic stem cell maintenance and tumor cell persistence. His interdisciplinary approach bridges stem cell and cancer biology to reveal fundamental mechanisms of tumor cell dormancy.