Scientific Committee on Transplantation Biology & Cellular Therapies

Committee Roster

Chair
David Ritchie, MD, PhD  ('26)

Vice Chair
Parvathi Ranganathan, PhD  ('26)

Appointed Members
Mary Eapen, MD, MBBS, MS  ('26)
Matthew Frank, MD, PhD  ('28)
David Knapp, PhD  ('26)
Motoko Koyama, MD, PhD  ('28)
Yi Lin, MD, PhD  ('29)
Roni Shouval, MD, PhD  ('27)
Victor Tkachev, PhD  ('29)
Benjamin Vincent, MD  ('27)

Staff Liaison
Alice Kuaban, MS

Committee Mandate

The Scientific Committee on Transplantation Biology and Cellular Therapies is focused on immunotherapeutic strategies including the one mediated by allogeneic blood and marrow transplantation. It covers the following clinical areas:

  • Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and related adoptive cell therapies,
  • Clinical immunotherapy, and complications related to these therapies,
  • Adoptive cellular therapies,
  • Emerging immunotherapeutic strategies such as targeted therapies, checkpoints inhibitors, cancer vaccines and management of complications related to these therapies
  • Emerging areas of novel stem cell-based therapies for hematopoietic diseases (adult and pluripotent stem cell-based therapies),
  • New conditioning regimens.

This committee differs from other closely related scientific committees such as the scientific committee on Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine in that its focus is more on the immunological aspects of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and cell-based therapies and pre-clinical (in vivo) testing of these therapies. Also, the committee now covers immune mediated cell based therapies such as use of chimeric antigen receptors T cells (CART), and other genetically engineered T lymphocytes. This committee also differs from the scientific committee on Immunology and Host Defense in that it focuses more on the therapeutic aspects of cellular therapies and complications that extend beyond immune problems and rejection.

Thus, appropriate sessions at the annual meeting may include:

  • Immune based adoptive cellular therapies (CART, other genetically engineered T lymphocytes such as with TCR gene editing, etc)
  • Emerging immunotherapeutic strategies (targeted therapies, checkpoints inhibitors, antibody therapies (target a particular molecule, either on the tumor itself or another strategic location), cancer vaccines, and combination therapies)
  • Role of Transplant in management of hematologic malignancies (new and existing indications)
  • Graft-versus-tumor activity
  • Transplantation-related complications, such as graft-versus-host disease and transplantation-related organ toxicity
  • Immune cell-host interactions in the tumoral microenvironment
  • Novel cell-based therapies (adult and pluripotent stem cell-based therapies) for non-hematopoietic diseases
  • New conditioning regimens