Seeking Patient Care?
- To develop state of the art clinical services in stem cell transplantation and cellular immunotherapy that meet the needs of potential transplant candidates in Florida and elsewhere.
- To develop academic, clinical, translational and basic research programs that advance the frontier of stem cell transplantation and cellular immunotherapy.
- To educate clinical trainees, referring physicians and the public regarding the indications and appropriate utilization of stem cell transplantation and cellular immunotherapy in order to improve access and outcomes.
Academic faculty in the Division include seven physicians, two research faculty members, all with specialized training in cellular therapy and dedicated academic careers in clinical trials and/or laboratory research. Our faculty have held leadership positions not only locally, but in leading professional societies including the American Society of Transplantation and Cellular Therapy and the American Society of Hematology, among others. The Division helps to educate hematology/oncology fellows and offers a fellowship in Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy and one of the first dedicated training programs for stem cell transplant nurse practitioners.
Since the establishment of inpatient care at Sylvester in 2012, our programs in stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy have been among the fastest growing in the country. The program now performs more than 250 annual cellular therapy procedures annually, including approximately 100 allogeneic transplants (approximately 60% of which are performed using unrelated donors).
Our cell therapy programs were recognized by designation as a core center for the NHLBI and NCI funded Bone Marrow Clinical Trials Network. Particular clinical research strengths of our program include expertise in mismatched unrelated donor transplantation and T cell therapies for cancer, including chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies for lymphoma and leukemia.
While we now have a high-volume clinical program in cellular therapy, our primary goal is to provide compassionate care while achieving outstanding patient outcomes. In 2019, the cellular therapy programs were recognized as one of fewer than 20 programs nationally to have one-year risk adjusted survival that exceeded expected outcomes per the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplantation Research (CIBMTR).
Our excellence in outcomes and patient satisfaction are achieved by an outstanding multidisciplinary group including clinical faculty, advance practice professionals including nurse practitioners, oncology pharmacists, nurses and a broad range of other personnel who specialize in the care of complex cell therapy patients. Division faculty also interact with a broad range of other specialists, including members of the Divisions of Infectious Diseases and Pulmonary and Critical Care. More than 25 active trials in cellular therapies provide our patients with access to cutting-edge clinical research.