Faculty

Bio

Dr. Osborn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. He is also a member of the Cancer Center. Dr. Osborn received his PhD degree from the University of Minnesota in 2009 in the laboratory of Dr. Bruce R. Blazar, MD.

Research Summary

Dr. Osborn's current research is focused on gene and cellular therapy for disorders treated by hematopoietic cell transplantation including: Fanconi anemia, epidermolysis bullosa, and Hurler syndrome. This involves utilizing a patient's own cells for precision gene targeting and correction of their disease causing mutation. Genome editing nucleases and multiple terminally differentiated and stem cell populations are utilized towards optimizing ex vivo cellular therapies.
Gene Therapy
- Non-viral gene transfer for the treatment of inborn errors of metabolism.
Genome Editing
- Correction of disease specific mutations in a precise manner using homologous recombination.
Cellular Therapy
- Ex vivo correction of murine and human adult stem cells.

Bio

Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, PhD is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplant & Cellular Therapy. She is also a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep. Dr. Panoskaltsis-Mortari is the Director of the Cytokine Reference Laboratory, the Director of the 3D Bioprinting Facility at the University of Minnesota and Vice Chair for Research for the Department of Pediatrics.
Dr. Panoskaltsis-Mortari received her PhD from the University of Western Ontario. She was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Pathology at the University of Alabama and a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. She joined the University of Minnesota faculty in 1995.
Dr. Panoskaltsis-Mortari has board certification from the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology. She is a member of numerous immunology, pulmonary, and hematology professional societies, and the author of over 275 articles which have appeared in such publications as Advanced Materials, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Blood, Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, and American Journal of Physiology (Lung, Cell. & Mol. Physiol.).

Research Summary

With 25 years of experience in animal models of stem cell transplant, lung injury, mesenchymal stem/stromal cell therapy and the biology of graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) after bone marrow transplant, Dr. Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari's work has evolved into the bioengineering field, and she is recognized as one of the thought leaders in lung bioengineering. Dr. Panoskaltsis-Mortari's laboratory research currently focuses upon 2 major themes: 1) bioengineering autologous tissues such as trachea and esophagus using 3D bioprinting and customized hydrogels including decellularized extracellular matrix; and 2) 3D bioprinting of cancer models.
Dr. Panoskaltsis-Mortari established and directs the 3D Bioprinting Facility at the University of Minnesota. She also directs the UMN Cytokine Reference Laboratory (a CLIA-licensed facility). She is a member of the Stem Cell Institute, the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, the Lillehei Heart Institute, the Masonic Cancer Center, the Center for Immunology, and the Robotics Institute. She is funded by the NIH, has mentored many post-docs, MD trainees, graduate students and undergrads in various training programs. Her goal is to realize the potential of regenerative medicine by converging the fields of stem cell biology, mechanical & biomedical engineering, biomaterials, physiology, robotics, and surgery to bioengineer autologous tissues/organs for transplant using a patient's own cells that would not be rejected by their immune system.

Bio

Dr. Srikanthan is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy at the University of Minnesota. Dr Srikanthan received her MD from the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville where she also completed her residency in Pediatrics. She completed a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology Oncology at the Seattle Children’s Hospital and was a Research Associate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Her research focuses on antibody based conditioning in non-malignant diseases, such as Fanconi Anemia, in order to decrease the side effects of cellular therapy.
Dr. Srikanthan specializes in bone marrow transplantation for children with bone marrow failure disorders such as Fanconi Anemia and other non-malignant diseases. Her expertise also includes caring for patients undergoing a transplant for various cancers, such as leukemia.

Research Summary

Fanconi Anemia

Bio

Jakub Tolar, MD, PhD is the dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School and a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Blood and Marrow Transplant & Cellular Therapy. He is also the vice president for Clinical Affairs at the University of Minnesota, board chair for University of Minnesota Physicians and co-leader of M Health Fairview, the joint clinical enterprise among the University of Minnesota Medical School, University of Minnesota Physicians and Fairview Health Services. An internationally recognized physician and researcher, Dr. Tolar is known for his care of patients with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. His research is focused on developing cellular therapies for rare genetic disorders. Originally from the Czech Republic, Dr. Tolar received his medical education (MD) in Prague at Charles University. In 1992, he came to the University of Minnesota, where he received his PhD in Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology and Genetics.

Research Summary

Dr. Tolar's research focuses on finding new ways to treat children with lethal, inherited diseases. He is also looking for safer and more effective gene therapy for diseases such as epidermolysis bullosa, mucopolysaccharidosis type I (Hurler syndrome), Fanconi anemia, and dyskeratosis congenita. Additional research interests include reducing the negative effects of stem cell transplantation (such as using mesenchymal stromal cells for graft-versus-host disease); creation and use of induced pluripotent stem cells; gene therapy using gene addition (with viral vectors and trasposons); and gene editing (with synthetic nucleases to repair genes).

Clinical Summary

Blood and marrow transplantation; Gene therapy for correction of genetic diseases

Bio

John E. Wagner, MD, is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Blood and Marrow Transplant & Cellular Therapy. He is the Founding Director of the new Institute of Cell, Gene and Immunotherapeutics at the University of Minnesota. Co-Director of the Center for Translational Medicine, and holds two endowed chairs—Children's Cancer Research Fund/Hageboeck Family Chair in Childhood Cancer Research, and the University of Minnesota McKnight-Presidential Chair.
Dr. Wagner's research is focused on the development of novel cell therapies for treatment of life threatening diseases. Examples include the development of regulatory T cells that could be used in the treatment of autoimmunity, organ graft rejection as well as graft-versus-host disease, thymic progenitors to repair damaged immune systems, cardiac myoblasts to reverse heart failure, skeletal myoblasts to repair or replace dystrophic muscle fibers in muscular dystrophy, and expansion of the blood-forming stem cell to speed blood and marrow recovery after high doses of chemotherapy and radiation. Dr. Wagner is best known for his pioneering work on the use of placental/cord blood as a source of stem cells for transplantation – a procedure that has now been performed in more than 50,000 patients worldwide.

Research Summary

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

Bio

Dr. Michael Zaiken is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy. Dr. Zaiken completed his graduate training at the University of Minnesota in the Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology, and Genetics program under the advisement of Dr. Bruce R. Blazar in 2020. He continued on in the laboratory of Dr. Blazar for post-doctoral training focusing on bioinformatics and joined the Department of Pediatrics as faculty in 2023.

Research Summary

Dr. Zaiken’s current research is focused on the application of novel bioinformatic analyses to the treatment of graft vs host disease (GVHD). This primarily focuses on the development of analytics pipelines for deciphering complex ‘omics’ datasets, with an emphasis on single-cell RNA sequencing and spatialomics data. Dr. Zaiken’s long term goal is to use these novel tools to improve understanding of transcriptional regulatory control of immune-malignancies including GVHD, as well as leveraging bioinformatics tools to improve the development of advanced cellular therapies.