Research Abstract
My academic focus is clinical research in the field of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. My specific interests revolve around post transplant toxicity, T-cell depletion, and adoptive immunotherapy. I am the co-principal investigator of an on-going clinical trial testing the infusion of donor derived dendritic cells (DC) along with DLI in patients with disease relapse after HSCT. The goal of this study is to assess the safety of DC infusion, and may lead to future studies using donor DCs to augment GVL activity post transplant.I am also the author and principal investigator of a clinical trial investigating the feasibility and safety of administering a GM-SCF secreting leukemia cell vaccine (G-VAX) to patients with active MDS/myeloid leukemia following a non-myeloablative stem cell transplant. This is an important pilot study investigating the potential use of tumor vaccine post allogeneic transplant to stimulate GVL activity.