Christopher G. Kanakry, M.D.

Dr. Kanakry’s research is in transplantation immunology and graft-versus-host disease, particularly focused on better understanding the immunologic mechanisms by which post-transplantation cyclophosphamide prevents graft-versus-host disease in order to rationally improve transplantation platforms using this approach. His work has disproven the previously widely accepted paradigm that post-transplantation cyclophosphamide works by selectively eliminating alloreactive T cells.  He has shown in humans and mice that regulatory T cells preferentially recover after post-transplantation cyclophosphamide and are necessary in murine models for post-transplantation cyclophosphamide’s activity in preventing graft-versus-host disease.  More recently, he has shown that post-transplantation cyclophosphamide does not eliminate alloreactive T cells, but instead induces their functional impairment.  He also has published multiple clinical studies on the use of post-transplantation cyclophosphamide as graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis in human leukocyte antigen-matched and -haploidentical allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. His current work centers on developing a comprehensive new model for understanding graft-versus-host disease prevention by post-transplantation cyclophosphamide in mice and translating these new findings to the clinic in early phase clinical studies.