Gay M. Crooks, MD

Gay Crooks, MBBS

Professor and Rebecca Smith Endowed Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Co-Director, Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research

Specialty

Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation

Institutional Affiliation

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center

Languages

English

Education

Fellowships

Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, 1989 - 1993
Pediatrics, Fellow of Royal Australasian College of Physicians,1991

Internship

Internal Medicine, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, 1983

Degree

MB,BS University of Western Australia, 1982

Residency

Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, 1983 - 1984

Board Certification

Fellow of Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP), 1991

Clinical Interests

Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation, Primary Immune Deficiencies

Scientific Interests

Dr. Gay Crooks' research program was founded on the question of how to identify and functionally define human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. This central theme has reached over time into three related areas: 1) the characterization and manipulation of human hematopoietic stem cells and lymphoid progenitors in cord blood, bone marrow and thymus; 2) mechanisms of engraftment and thymopoiesis after bone marrow transplantation; and 3) hematopoiesis from human embryonic stem cells. Specific areas of investigation include the regulation of lymphoid development by non-coding RNAs, the development of artificial thymic organoids to induce T cell differentiation from hematopoietic stem cells, developmental regulation of the thymic stroma and vasculature, and hematopoiesis from human pluripotent stem cells.

Highlighted Publications

Seet CS, He C, Bethune MT, Li S, Chick B, Gschweng EH, Zhu Y, Kim K, Kohn DB, Baltimore D, Crooks GM, Montel-Hagen A. Generation of mature T cells from human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in artificial thymic organoids. Nat Methods. 2017 May;14(5):521-530. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.4237. Epub 2017 Apr 3.

Casero D, Sandoval S, Seet CS, Scholes J, Zhu Y, Ha VL, Parekh C, Crooks GM. Long non-coding RNA profiling of human lymphoid progenitor cells reveals transcriptional divergence of B cell and T cell lineages. Nat Immunol. 2015 Dec;16(12):1282-91. doi: 10.1038/ni.3299. Epub 2015 Oct 26.

Parekh C, Sahaghian A, Kim W, Scholes J, Ge S, Zhu Y, Asgharzadeh S, Hollis R, Kohn D, Ji L, Malvar J, Wang X, Crooks G. Novel pathways to erythropoiesis induced by dimerization of intracellular C-Mpl in human hematopoietic progenitors. Stem Cells. 2012 Apr;30(4):697-708.

Kohn LA, Hao QL, Sasidharan R, Parekh C, Ge S, Zhu Y, Mikkola HK, Crooks GM. Lymphoid priming in human bone marrow begins before expression of CD10 with upregulation of L-selectin. Nat Immunol. 2012 Oct;13(10):963-71. doi: 10.1038/ni.2405. Epub 2012 Sep 2.

Evseenko D, Zhu Y, Schenke-Layland K, Kuo J, Latour B, Ge S, Scholes J, Dravid G, Li X, MacLellan WR, Crooks GM. Mapping the first stages of mesoderm commitment during differentiation of human embryonic stem cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Aug 3;107(31):13742-7. Epub 2010 Jul 19.