Nelson Chao
Professor of Medicine, Immunology, Pathology and Global Health
Appointment:
Nelson Chao
Professor of Medicine, Immunology, Pathology and Global Health
My research interests are in two broad areas, clinical hematopoietic stem cell and cord blood transplantation and in the laboratory studies related to graft vs. host disease and immune reconstitution. On the clinical side we are currently conducting approximately 50 different clinical protocols ranging from preparatory regimens, supportive care studies and disease specific protocols. Most of these clinical studies are centered around studies of the sources of stem cells and the methods to improve the long term outcome. There are exploratory protocols for novel therapies such as dendritic cell therapy for several malignancies, antiangiogenesis therapy, graft engineering to prevent graft-versus-host disease and antigen specific T cells or non specific NK cells to prevent relapse. Moreover a strong focus of the program is to develop cord-blood transplantation for adult patients with hematologic malignancies. The laboratory studies center on understanding the immunological events that occur with graft-vs-host disease and methods to prevent this disease. The current efforts focus on understanding murine reconstitution following transplantation, use of a peptide polymer to block MHC class II recognition of minor histocompatibility antigens, use of T cell engineering to prevent graft-versus-host disease at the same time preserving a graft-versus-malignancy effect.
Publications
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Bracken SJ, Suthers AN, DiCioccio RA, Su H, Anand S, Poe JC, et al. Heightened TLR7 signaling primes BCR-activated B cells in chronic graft-versus-host disease for effector functions. Blood Adv. 2024 Feb 13;8(3):667–80.Ramirez P, Atsuta Y, Alseraihy A, Okamoto S, Teshima T, Aljurf M, et al. American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy International Affairs Committee: Report of the 4th Workshop on Quality as a Development Tool for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Programs at the 2023 Tandem BMT Meetings. Transplantation and cellular therapy. 2024 Feb;S2666-6367(24)00217-3.Sung AD, Koll T, Gier SH, Racioppi A, White G, Lew M, et al. Preconditioning Frailty Phenotype Influences Survival and Relapse for Older Allogeneic Transplantation Recipients. Transplant Cell Ther. 2024 Jan 17;Brickey WJ, Caudell DL, Macintyre AN, Olson JD, Dai Y, Li S, et al. The TLR2/TLR6 ligand FSL-1 mitigates radiation-induced hematopoietic injury in mice and nonhuman primates. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Dec 12;120(50):e2122178120.
See more publications at Scholars@Duke