Hematopoiesis is a well-regulated and conserved process, through which new blood cells are formed from the stem and progenitor cells. In the fruit fly- Drosophila, the major bout of hematopoiesis takes place during the larval stage, in the bone-marrow equivalent tissue known as the lymph gland. It comprises of three spatially segregated subsets of blood progenitor cells, arranged flanking the dorsal vessel. Though the cells all express the classical progenitor markers, active hematopoiesis is restricted to the anterior-most subset. Even under immune stress, the posterior progenitors do not differentiate and show a differential response to pathogenic cues. Through the lens of metabolism and organellar dynamics, we are trying to understand what makes these seemingly similar cells behave in a contrasting manner.