ASTCT Talks

In this latest episode of ASTCT Talks, we celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month as Dr. Jennifer Saultz talks with Dr. Eneida Nemecek to highlight her work and share her advocacy, passion and journey to becoming a medical director of clinical research. She explains her experiences as a Latina woman in the field of cellular therapy and transplantation, barriers Hispanic and marginalized groups face in cellular transplantation, inclusivity efforts for health equity, the value of mentor and sponsorship and more.

About Dr. Jennifer Saultz

Dr. Jennifer Saultz is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Oregon Healthy & Science University and a member of the Adult Transplant and cellular therapy team. Her research focuses on the innate immune resistance signatures in AML. She is also a member of the ASTCT Content Committee.

About Dr. Eneida Nemecek

Dr. Eneida Nemecek is a Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Oncology and Medical director of Clinical Research at the Knight Cancer Institute-Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon. Her research focuses on bone marrow and cellular therapies, and health services research addressing disparities in access for underrepresented groups. She has served in leadership roles in steering committees for several NIH/NCI-funded cooperative groups. She has also held elected leadership positions as director, trustee or committee chair in multiple organizations including Be The Match/National Marrow Donor Program, Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network, the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium, American Society of Transplant and Cellular Therapies, American Society of Hematology and Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy.

In the next installment of ASTCT’s Titans of Transplant series, Dr. Rainer Storb, one of the pioneers who established allogeneic, or donor, blood stem cell transplantation as a cure for diseases like leukemia and aplastic anemia, is interviewed by Dr. Masumi Ueda.

About Dr. Storb

Rainer Storb, MD, serves as Professor and Head of Transplantation Biology Program Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutch.

About Dr. Ueda

Masumi Ueda, MD, serves as Associate Professor in the Clinical Research Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Division of Medical Oncology at University of Washington School of Medicine and assistant medical director of inpatient blood and marrow transplantation at University of Washington Medical Center and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center Hospital.

The Titans of Transplant series seeks to recognize, celebrate and chronicle the physicians, researchers, pharmacists, nurses, social workers and more who were on the frontlines of the early days of transplant.

In the next installment of ASTCT’s Titans of Transplant series, Dr. Hema Rangarajan, an oncologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a member of the ASTCT Content Committee, speaks with Dr. Adriana Seber, who is a professor of medicine at the University of Miami and the Kalish Family Chair and Chief of Division of Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and Vice-President of the Brazilian BMT Society.

The Titans of Transplant series seeks to recognize, celebrate and chronicle the physicians, researchers, pharmacists, nurses, social workers and more who were on the frontlines of the early days of transplant.

In this latest episode of ASTCT Talks, Dr. Andrés Gómez De León, a physician at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León Hematology Service in Monterrey, Mexico, and Dr. Cristóbal Frutos, who is the Coordinator for the Bone Marrow transplant Unito the Hospital Central Instituto de Previsión Social in Asunción Paraguay, discuss the current state of transplant activities and the importance of having access to cell therapies worldwide. Dr. Frutos presented on this topic during the 2022 Tandem Meetings of ASTCT & CIBMTR.

In the next installment of ASTCT’s Titans of Transplant series, Dr. Rahul Banerjee, Advanced Fellow, BMT/CAR-T Therapy, with the Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, speaks with Dr. Krishna Komanduri, who is a professor of medicine at the University of Miami and the Kalish Family Chair and Chief of Division of Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The Titans of Transplant series seeks to recognize, celebrate and chronicle the physicians, researchers, pharmacists, nurses, social workers and more who were on the frontlines of the early days of transplant.

In the latest episode of ASTCT Talks, Dr. Zainab Shahid, internist in the hematology department of the Levine Cancer Institute Morehead in Charlotte, North Carolina, leads a conversation around ongoing clinical challenges regarding management of COVID-19 in transplant cellular therapy recipients. Dr. Shahid is joined by some of the foremost experts in infectious disease and transplant patients:

In the second installment of ASTCT’s Titans of Transplant series, Dr. Andrés Gómez De León, physician with the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León Hematology Service in Monterrey, Mexico, speaks with Dr. Gregorio Jaimovich, who is the director of the bone marrow transplantation programs of the Favaloro University Hospital and the Anchorena Hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Titans of Transplant series seeks to recognize, celebrate and chronicle the physicians, researchers, pharmacists, nurses, social workers and more who were on the frontlines of the early days of transplant.

In the first episode of ASTCT’s Titans of Transplant series, Dr. Jennifer Holter-Chakrabarty, physician with The University of Oklahoma Health and professor of medicine in hematology/oncology, speaks with Dr. Mary Horowitz, whose credentials include professor and deputy cancer center director at the Medical College of Wisconsin; the Robert A. Uihlein, Jr. Chair in hematologic research; associate director of genomics; and scientific director emeritus of CIBMTR.

The Titans of Transplant series seeks to recognize, celebrate and chronicle the physicians, researchers, pharmacists, nurses, social workers and more who were on the frontlines of the early days of transplant.

Join Dr. Rahul Banerjee, Advanced Fellow of BMT / CAR T Therapy in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, and Dr. Nina Shah, Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at UC San Francisco, as they discuss their paper “Early Time-to-Tocilizumab after B Cell Maturation Antigen-Directed Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Therapy in Myeloma.” The paper was co-authored by Drs. Shah and Banerjee, along with several colleagues, and was published in ASTCT’s Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Journal in March.

This episode of ASTCT Talks features a recently recorded conversation with Dr. John DiPersio, a Bone Marrow Transplant Specialist and Medical Oncologist at the Siteman Cancer Center at the Washington University School of Medicine, and a past president of ASTCT. We discuss emerging therapies to treat AML, advancements in immunotherapies, and much more.