Craig Byersdorfer, MD

My research focuses on understanding immune cell metabolism during graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and in T cells during anti-cancer immune responses. GVHD is the major complication following allogeneic blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) and the primary obstacle to making this curative therapy more widely available. I spent several years using my formal training in Immunology to define and understand GVHD and stem cell transplantation on a cellular level. Later, I married this immunological understanding with techniques and insights from the field of cellular metabolism. This combination provides a novel and innovative way to investigate cells responsible for post-transplant immune reconstitution and disease pathogenesis. More recently, my laboratory has begun to investigate metabolic modulation as a way to improve the function of cancer-targeting T cells. My training, both in the laboratory and in the clinic/hospital, positions the lab to not only understand the clinical challenges of BMT and caveats of adoptive cellular therapies, but also to dig deeper into the fundamental immunology of these procedures to help develop the next generation of interventions against cancer and transplant-related complications. I remain captivated by a career in academic medicine, where I will continue to combine my passion in caring for pediatric transplant and oncology patients with laboratory endeavors to generate improved therapies for GVHD and difficult-to-treat malignancies.