Research Synopsis

Clinical Stem Cell Transplantation

The Clinical Stem Cell Transplantation group is comprised on clinicians at Yale with distinct, yet highly overlapping research interests. All are working to improve patient outcome following autologous and allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. Drs. Dennis Cooper and Stuart Seropian are the physicians who are primarily responsible for autologous PBSC transplantation, and they have studied whether CD34 selection of cells prior to transplantation can effectively decrease the number of tumor cells infused at the time of transplantation, and whether this decrease improves patient out come. They are also intimately involved in all studies of allogeneic transplantation. Dr. Warren Shlomchik is taking a unique approach to decreasing the incidence and severity of graft versus host disease following allogeneic transplantation. Dr. Shlomchik's work is based on studies in his research laboratory that show that naïve T cells in the transplanted cell population cause GVHD. In the Richard D. Frisbee III Laboratory for clinical stem cell processing, we are in the process of gearing up to perform clinical studies of depletion of naïve T cells from donor cells prior to transplantation. This clinical team is highly motivated to bring cell therapies to the clinical and meets regularly with Dr. Krause and Dr. Edward Snyder regarding issues in clinical stem cell processing. Dr. Mario Sznol is new to the Yale faculty from the NCI, and his clinical research is focused on patient-specific dendritic cell therapies for melanoma.