Maegan L. Capitano, PhD

Bio

Maegan L. Capitano earned her B.A. in Biology from St. Mary’s Honors College of Maryland in 2004. During her summers in college, she worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the laboratory of Dr. Bo Dupont as a laboratory technician where she developed a passion for research. She next went on to earn a M.S. in Natural Science-Oncology in 2006 and her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology in 2012 at the State University of New York- Roswell Park Cancer Center Division under the mentorship of Dr. Elizabeth Repasky where she was given the George Meyer’s Award for Proficiency and Academic Excellence in Immunology. She received her post-doctoral training (2012-2016) in the laboratory of Dr. Hal E. Broxmeyer at Indiana University School of Medicine focusing on Experimental Hematology. In the fall of 2016, she joined the faculty of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine as an Assistant Research Professor. In addition to her laboratory research, Dr. Capitano served on the Trainee Council for the American Society of Hematology, a committee made up of two Ph.D.s and ten M.D.s that are in the earlier stages of their careers in Hematology. They are in charge of developing educational tools for the ASH Trainee website and to help organize Trainee Day for the annual national meeting.  Dr. Capitano’s research focuses on discovering potential new agents that regulate hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell migration, proliferation, differentiation and survival capacity under normal and stressed conditions.

Key Publications

Capitano, M. L., Ertel, B. R., Repasky, E. A., and Ostberg, J. R. (2008) Winner of the 2007 Society for Thermal Medicine Young Investigator Award. Fever-range whole body hyperthermia prevents the onset of type 1 diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice. International Journal of Hyperthermia, 24(2): 141-149. PMID: 18283590 (Cover Image/Article)

Capitano, M. L., Nemeth, M. J., Mace, T. A., Salisbury-Ruf, C., Segal, B. H., McCarthy, P. L., and Repasky, E. A. (2012). Elevating body temperature enhances hematopoiesis and neutrophil recovery after total body irradiation in an IL-1, IL-17, and G-CSF dependent manner. Blood, 120(13): 2600-2609. PMID: 22806894

Kokolus, K. M.*, Capitano, M. L.*, Lee, C.-T., Eng, J. W., Waight, J. D., Hylander, B. L., Sexton, S., Hong, C. C., Gordon, C. J., Abrams, S. I., and Repasky, E. A. (2013) Baseline tumor growth and immune control in laboratory mice are significantly influenced by subthermoneutral housing temperature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA. 110(50): 20176-20181. *, These authors contributed equally to this work. PMID: 24248371

Capitano, M. L., Hangoc, G., Cooper, S., and Broxmeyer, H. E. (2015) Mild heat treatment primes human CD34+ cord blood cells for migration towards SDF-1 and enhances engraftment in an NSG mouse model. Stem Cells. 33(6):1975-1984. PMID: 25753525

Capitano, M. L. and Broxmeyer, H. E. (2016) “CXCL12/SDF-1 and Hematopoiesis” Reference Module in Biomedical Sciences. Encyclopedia of Cell Biology. Waltham & Oxford. Elsiever Publishing. (Eds. Bradshaw, R.A. and Stahl, P.D.) Volume 3; pp. 624-631.

Capitano, M. L., Zhang, S., and Broxmeyer, H.E. (2017) “Flt-3 Ligand” Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology. Elsevier Publishing. ISBN 9780128093245

Capitano, M. L. & Broxmeyer, H. E. (2017) A role for intracellular and extracellular DEK in regulating hematopoiesis. Current Opinions in Hematology. 24(4): 300-306. PMID: 28306668