A Journey Into the Unknown: PhD Students in a European Training Network on Age-related Changes in Hematopoiesis Conduct Their Project During a Global Pandemic

The age-related changes in hematopoiesis (ARCH) project is part of the Innovative Training Network (ITN) of the Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) program, which provides doctorate training of excellence based on the exchange of ideas and competencies from the academic and private sectors.1 The ARCH project intends to outline hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) alterations with aging, how hematopoietic cell individuality is controlled at the transcriptional and epigenetic levels in normal hematopoiesis and in leukemias, and understand the crosstalk between intrinsic and extrinsic indications that support the proliferation of preleukemic and leukemic cells within the hematopoietic niche. We are 15 PhD students funded by this network, based around Europe, and our common aim is to understand functional changes in the hematopoietic system with age, how these changes link to the development of age-associated diseases and in parallel work towards the development of new treatments.2 Our projects kicked off just when the severe acute respiratory coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged. Two and a half years later, SARS-CoV-2 continues to infect millions of people and has taken the lives of at least 6 million people worldwide.3 The COVID-19 outbreak brought along social isolation and feelings of uncertainty to everyone around the world, including doctorate students.4,5 Ironically, our projects have been more relevant than ever, as the pandemic has highlighted the important relationship between age-related changes in hematopoiesis and disease severity. Below, we aim to discuss the timeline of the ARCH project throughout the pandemic and how we managed to courageously pull through the hardships of doing research during a global pandemic within different settings (academia/institutes and industry). We provide recommendations to future PhD students on how to manage their PhD projects during global emergencies.