Stefan Ciurea is Associate Professor in the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and leader of the Haploidentical Transplant Program at this institution. Dr. Ciurea received his medical degree from the Gr. T Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iasi, Romania, and had Internal Medicine training at Harrisburg Hospital/PennState University, Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Fellowship in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He developed a Haploidentical Transplant Program at this institution with the goal to expand safe transplantation to all patients in need. Dr. Ciurea has made significant contributions in this field, primarily in identifying HLA antibodies as major cause of graft failure in mismatched transplantation and improving outcomes for patients with myeloid malignancies treated with haploidentical transplantation, and is principal investigator on multiple clinical trials. Rupert Handgretinger is Professor of Pediatrics, Chairman of the Department of General Pediatrics and Hematology/Oncology and Medical Director of the Children’s University Hospital Tübingen. He received his medical degree from the Eberhard-Karls-University in Tübingen in 1986 and was trained at the Children's University Hospital Tübingen in General Pediatrics and Hematology/Oncology. In 2000, he was appointed as director of the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA, where he served as a full faculty member and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee, Memphis, until 2005. He returned to Tübingen in 2005 when he was appointed as Chairman of the Department of General Pediatrics and Hematology/Oncology at the Children's University Hospital Tübingen. His main research interests are cellular immunotherapeutic approaches to the treatment of children with various forms of cancer in the context of allogeneic stem cell transplantation. He is especially interested in the establishment of graft engineering techniques to introduce new concepts in haploidentical transplantation and in the elucidation of mechanisms of graft-mediated anti-tumor effects induced by Natural Killer and other effector cells.
