Francois Mercier

Dr. François Mercier is a Senior Investigator at the JGH’s Lady Davis Institute (LDI) who researches blood cancer, particularly acute myeloid leukemia, the most common type of acute leukemia in adults.

His particular focus is the study of the interactions between normal and malignant hematopoietic cells with their environment, the bone marrow. In the organism, blood stem cells grow in an environment characterized by specific physico-chemical gradients and cellular interactions, including immune recognition. Better understanding this bi-directional communication could lead to novel approaches to mobilize abnormal cells for more efficient elimination or enhance the regeneration of blood stem cells. In order to answer these research questions, he is using novel technologies such as CRISPR genome editing in vivo and single-cell RNA sequencing technologies.