Current Research and Scholarly Interests
I am a physician-scientist in the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation/Cell Therapy (BMT/CT) at Stanford University. The dearth of effective therapies for refractory leukemias and the curative potential of hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT) prompted me to pursue a career in HCT. As a BMT clinician, caring for patients suffering from the toxicities of HCT and post-HCT leukemia relapse motivated me to pursue laboratory and translational research in search of less toxic and more effective HCT conditioning strategies. In 2021, I became an instructor in the laboratory of Dr. Judith Shizuru who specializes in CD117 antibody based non-toxic HCT conditioning. We have produced anti-CD117 multi-antigen targeting and NK, macrophage or T cell engaging antibodies to eradicate residual leukemic clones and permit engraftment of normal donor HSCs. Our invitro studies are already showing superiority of the multiantigen targeting NK engaging antibodies and invivo studies of these antibodies in xenograft models of myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia are in progress.