Mesenchymal Stromal Cells

Peiman Hematti, MD is Associate Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health.  He obtained his MD degree from Tehran University, School of Medicine, completed residencies in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and a clinical and research fellowship in hematology at National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. He joined UW-Madison in 2004 as a bone marrow transplant physician and soon became the director of Clinical Hematopoietic Cell Processing Laboratory, and Director of Bone Marrow Collection, Apheresis and Processing Center, at University of Wisconsin-Hospital and Clinics. His clinical research interests are in the use of mesenchymal stromal cells for treatment of graft versus host disease and other immune dysregulation disorders, novel cellular therapies for hematological malignancies, and use of bone marrow stem cells in regenerative medicine. His laboratory research focuses on investigating the immune modulatory properties of mesenchymal stromal cells with a focus on their interactions with macrophages. He is collaborating with many investigators from a wide range of disciplines at the local, national, and international levels studying the potential of mesenchymal stromal cells in many different in vitro and in vivo pre-clinical models with the ultimate goal of using these cells in clinical trials. He is co-principal investigator of UW-Madison “Production Assistance for Cellular Therapies” (PACT) award from NHLBI-NIH, and 2012-chair of PACT Education Steering Committee. He has been recently selected to serve as the American Society of Hematology representative to the AABB Cellular Therapies Standards Program Unit. Dr. Hematti is on editorial board of several journals including Experimental Hematology and Cytotherapy. He has numerous manuscripts and bookchapters published in the field of mesenchymal stromal cells.

Armand Keating, MD, FRCP(C), is Professor of Medicine, Director, Division of Hematology, Epstein Chair in Cell Therapy and Transplantation and a Professor in the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. He is also Director of the Cell Therapy Program and the Orsino Cell Therapy Translational Research Laboratory at Princess Margaret Hospital. He obtained the MD degree from the University of Ottawa, completed residencies in internal medicine and hematology at the University of Toronto and a research fellowship at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He was a Cancer Research Scientist of the National Cancer Institute of Canada for 10 years and upon his return to Toronto established the largest stem cell transplant program in Canada. He was Chief of Medical Services and Head, Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Hospital/Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto for a decade.  More recently, he established the largest and most active cell therapy program in Canada involving local, national and international collaborators. He became President of American Society of Hematology (ASH) in 2012. He is a past president of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation and was Chair of the Steering Committee for Cell-Based Therapy of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, US National Institutes of Health. He also chaired the Medical and Scientific Committee of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and a member of its Board of Directors for eight years. He is on numerous editorial boards of scholarly journals, and is a Co-Editor of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Associate Editor of Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. Dr. Keating’s clinical and research interests focus on anti-cancer cell therapy, blood and marrow transplantation, leukemia, lymphoma,and cell-based tissue regeneration. He has conducted laboratory, translational and clinical research in cell therapy, normal and leukemic hematopoiesis, and on the biology and clinical application of mesenchymal stromal cells.  He has authored over 350 publications.