CABP Interview January 2023: Jose Cancelas, MD, PhD

What is your name, where are you from, what do you do – tell us a bit about yourself?

My name is Jose Cancelas, MD, PhD, CABP. I am a professor and director/chairman of Hoxworth Blood Center and its Academic Dept. in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. I am a physician/scientist interested in advancing health care through the provision of, and innovative research in, blood and biotherapies. I am the medical director for two cellular therapy cores in Cincinnati, at Hoxworth Blood Center (an AABB-accredited facility) since 2004 and in the Translational Core Laboratories of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center since 2019.

What first attracted you to biotherapies?

During the years of 1984-1989, I was an undergraduate student who wanted to learn enzymology. That is when I was first introduced to patients with adenosine deaminase deficiency and other immunodeficiencies. Come the 1990s, I was a medical resident in hematology in a busy stem cell transplantation program and became interested in cell/gene modification. After my residency, during my PhD and postdoctoral fellowship training, I developed a translational program to purify and modify hematopoietic stem cell grafts. During my post-MD time, as a PhD graduate student, I had the great opportunity to become the principal investigator of a pilot clinical trial of purified hematopoietic stem cells in autologous transplantation, which opened my eyes to the fascinating world of translational cellular therapy research.

How did you first get involved with AABB?

I became a member in 2002, while enrolled in a clinical postdoctoral fellowship at the Hoxworth Blood Center, University of Cincinnati. I was fortunate enough to be funded by AABB’s Foundation and received a grant, as well as the prize for innovative research. Then, little by little, I was asked to participate in educational/research committees, and I am now a member of the AABB Board of Directors.