Dr. Anna E. Beaudin is an Associate Professor Division of Hematology and Hematologic Malignancies, Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She holds an adjunct appointment in the Division of Microbiology and Immunology in the Department of Pathology, and holds membership in the Molecular Medicine Program.
The overarching goal of Dr. Beaudin's research is to define the contribution of fetal hematopoiesis, or blood production, to immune development, immune function, and disease susceptibility across the lifespan. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are responsible for sustaining production of all blood and immune cells across the lifespan. Dr. Beaudin's research focuses on fetal HSCs and the process of fetal hematopoiesis, in which transient HSCs produce a series of distinct blood and immune cells that function to meet the discrete immunological needs of the fetus across development. Fetal-derived immune cells are fundamentally distinct from immune cells produced in adulthood -- they defy conventional phenotypic and functional definitions, and seed developing organs where they persist across the lifespan of the animal to support tissue homeostasis. The Beaudin lab utilizes single-cell analysis, fate-mapping, and in vivo analysis in mouse models to investigate how these specialized cells are made during fetal hematopoiesis, in order to gain insight into the role of these cells in tissue development, regeneration, and disease pathogenesis across the lifespan. We also investigate how perturbation of fetal hematopoiesis by extrinsic stimuli during development (infection, nutrition) shapes susceptibility to immune dysfunction by disrupting immune system establishment and reshaping the trajectory of adult hematopoiesis.
Dr. Beaudin's training is highly interdisciplinary, spanning nutritional sciences, biochemistry, and developmental and stem cell biology, thereby allowing her to make unique contributions to research at the intersection of development, hematopoiesis, and immunology. Originally from Los Angeles, California, Dr. Beaudin completed a B.A. in Psychology and Ph.D. in Nutritional sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She continued her postdoctoral work at UC Santa Cruz, where she used a fate-mapping approach to discover a novel, transient hematopoietic progenitor that serves as a cell of origin for fetal-restricted innate-like lymphocytes (Beaudin et al, Cell Stem Cell, 2016; Beaudin & Forsberg, Blood, 2016). Since opening her lab in 2016, Dr. Beaudin's work has been funded by several NIH-funded awards, the Hellman Foundation, and she is a recipient of the Pew Biomedical Scholars Award. Dr. Beaudin is an active member of the International Society of Experimental Hematology, where she serves on the Publications Committee, as well as American Society of Hematology, and the American Association of Immunologists. She was also elected as a council member for the Midwinter Conference of Immunologists. Dr. Beaudin's is an active reviewer for journals including Cell Stem Cell, Stem Cell Reports, Blood, and Nature Communications, and her work has been published in high profile journals such as Cell Stem Cell, Stem Cell Reports, and Development.