Current Research and Scholarly Interests
I am a highly trained Pediatric stem cell transplant physician with a strong basic science background and experience with translational research. I trained extensively in India and premier institutions in USA as a pediatric Hematologist-Oncologist and transplant physician. My experience in this field also includes extensive expertise in development of stem cell assays and in vivo models of human hematopoiesis .
I started the clinical Umbilical cord blood transplant program at Cincinnati Children's. Through my research efforts we were able to develop a sterile system for collection and use of cord blood cells. This endeavor later contributed in establishing methods to collect and store cord blood for clinical use. In the laboratory we were able to set up the assays to identify and collect highly purified hematopoietic cells from the cord blood. The engraftment and expansion potential of the cord blood derived hematopoietic cells was studied in the immune deficient mice. These models were then used to develop assays for gene transfer in Fanconi Anemia.
Currently, I have been at Stanford university and Children's hospital at Stanford for the past 23 years and served as the medical director and section chief of Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant program until 2019.
My focus is entirely clinical and translational research to reduce toxicity from high doses of conditioning chemotherapy and radiation therapy, cellular therapies to reduce graft vs host disease, graft manipulation to reduce complications from graft vs. host disease in patients who receive mismatched donor stem cells and gene therapy for genetic disorders like IPEX and Fanconi Anemia.
I have expertise in phase I clinical trial design and implementation in cell and gene therapies. I have written, implemented and lead 6 phase 1 clinical trials at Stanford in the past 8 years.
My most innovative clinical Trial is reducing toxicity from chemotherapy during conditioning for stem cell transplants, where we have a phase 1/2 clinical trial using CKIT antibody (JSP 191) successfully in patients with SCID and Fanconi Anemia.
Recently we obtained a CLIN 2 grant from CIRM for using the JSP 191 antibody in patients with Fanconi Anemia.
My goal is to keep pursuing safety in stem cell transplantation for children who have life threatening disorders and keep pushing the envelop to save the precious lives.
