Fernando Camargo

Fellow, Whitehead Institute 617.258.8590 phone camargo@wi.mit.edu

Each year, roughly 40,000 people worldwide who suffer from leukemia or certain other disease of the blood receive a bone marrow transplant, necessitating that they first undergo the difficult process of total-body irradiation. Whitehead Fellow Fernando Camargo is engaged in research that may one day make these kinds of procedures far easier on patients and might also pave the way for treating other diseases as well.

Camargo focuses on hematopoietic stem cells, those cells in the bone marrow that give rise to mature blood cells. These cells are rare, and they can remain in an early progenitor state while the cells that they spawn go on to develop into highly specialized cells.
Of particular interest to Camargo are the molecular mechanisms that enable these cells to remain in such a stage. Using a wide range of laboratory technologies such as microarrays and RNA interference, Camargo is conducting large-scale screenings of these cells in order to find the exact genes that determine their properties.

When such genetic signatures are identified, researchers may be able to manipulate these cells. In the case of bone marrow transplants, patients need to undergo extensive irradiation and immunosuppression, procedures that destroy all the existing bone marrow in the patient's body. But with a greater knowledge of how these cells work, scientists may one day be able to fine-tune the cells’ genetic mechanisms in such a way that new cells can be introduced and proliferate in the patient's body without the need to destroy the existing marrow cells.

In leukemia, the mechanism that keeps these stem cells in their progenitor state is hijacked by the cancer, forcing them to proliferate indefinitely. Camargo is investigating exactly how this happens in the hope that such findings may lead to more targeted therapies for blood cancers. He discussed this connection in a podcast at the Museum of Science in October 2006 (26.8 mb mp3 or 220 kbps mono audio stream courtesy of WGBH Forum Network). Camargo also is interested in identifying the properties that allow these cells to sometimes fuse with other cells.

Recently, Camargo and his colleagues discovered the first microRNA shown to play a crucial role in the innate immune response.  The researchers found that microRNA-223 is involved in the production and activation of granulocytes, white blood cells essential for host defense against invading pathogens. This finding not only has implications for the treatment of leukemia, it may also be relevant for a variety of inflammatory conditions. Additionally, in collaboration with the lab of Whitehead Fellow Thijn Brummelkamp, Camargo is studying the so-called Hippo signaling pathway, which regulates size and growth of organs and tissues, and influences cell regeneration and possibly cancer.

Camargo received his PhD from Baylor College of Medicine in 2004, and became a Fellow at Whitehead Institute that year.

Selected Publications

Baek D, Villén J, Shin C, Camargo FD, Gygi SP, Bartel DP. (2008) The impact of microRNAs on protein output. Nature. Sep 4;455(7209):64-71.

Johnnidis JB, Camargo FD. (2008) Isolation and functional characterization of side population stem cells. Methods Mol Biol. 430:183-93.

Johnnidis JB, Harris MH, Wheeler RT, Stehling-Sun S, Lam MH, Kirak O, Brummelkamp TR, Fleming MD, Camargo FD. (2008) Regulation of progenitor cell proliferation and granulocyte function by microRNA-223. Nature. Feb 28;451(7182):1125-9.

Camargo FD, Gokhale S, Johnnidis JB, Fu D, Bell GW, Jaenisch R, Brummelkamp TR. (2007) YAP1 increases organ size and expands undifferentiated progenitor cells. Curr Biol. Dec 4;17(23):2054-60.

Olmsted-Davis EA, Gugala Z, Camargo F, Gannon F, Jackson K, Anderson-Kienstra K, H. Shine D, Lindsey RW, Hirschi KK, Goodell MA, Brenner M, Davis AR. (2004) Primitive adult hematopoietic stem cells can function as osteoblast precursors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 100:15877-82.

Camargo FD, Green R, Capetenaki Y, Jackson KA, Goodell MA. (2003) Single hematopoietic stem cells generate skeletal muscle through myeloid intermediates. Nature Med. 9:1520-1527.

McKinney-Freeman SL, Jackson KA, Camargo FD, Ferrari G, Mavilio F, Goodell MA. (2002) Muscle-derived hematopoietic stem cells are hematopoietic in origin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 99:1341-6.

Erickson RP, Garver WS, Camargo F, Hossain GS, Heidenreich RA. (2000) Pharmacological and genetic modifications of somatic cholesterol do not sub- stantially alter the course of CNS disease in Niemann- Pick C mice. J Inherit Metab Dis. 23:54-62.

Camargo FD, Huey-Louie DA, Finn AV, Sassani AB, Cozen AE, Moriwaki H, Schneider DB, Agah R, Dichek DA. (2000) Germline incorporation of a replication-defective adenoviral vector in mice does not alter immune responses to adenoviral vectors. Mol Ther. 2:496-504.

[publications (pubmed database)]