John Wagner, MD

Dr. Wagner's research has focused on the development of new treatment approaches for life-threatening diseases for which conventional treatments are unsatisfactory. Dr. Wagner is recognized for pioneering the use of double umbilical cord blood transplantation in adults and embryo selection to insure an HLA matched, healthy child ('savior sibling') for another child in need of transplant. He is also a leader in the use of regulatory T cells to prevent rejection and graft versus host disease, expanded blood forming stem cells to speed blood and marrow recovery, novel conditioning regimens to dramatically increase the chance of cure of patients with Fanconi anemia and bone marrow derived stem cells to repair the skin in severely affected children with Epidermolysis Bullosa.

1. Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation in Children and Adults
Ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic stem cells
Double unit transplantation
Non-myeloablative preparative therapies
Co-infusion of T-regulatory cells
Graft vs. Leukemia Effector Therapies

2. Fanconi anemia
Novel preparative therapies
Gene therapy - multipotent adult stem cell
Phenotype-genotype correlations (collaboration with Rockefeller University)
Pathophysiology

3. Multipotent Adult Stem Cells (MAPC) in tissue repair
Translational development/large scale manufacture of MAPC
Evaluation of MAPC therapeutic potential in congenital and acquired disorders