Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Committee

Aims & Scope

The Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Committee strives to:

• Participate in the planning of the Roundtable Programs at the ISCT Annual Meeting and ISCT Regional Meetings and the review of submitted abstracts
• Review the status of the MSC field and compile position papers on the relevant scientific issues that must be addressed to advance or enable cellular therapies utilizing MSCs
• Foster international discussion about controversies in the MSC field and method/nomenclature standardization
• Offer educational opportunities to Early Stage Professionals (ESP) in the MSC field
  
  

Selected Publications

• Failure to launch commercially-approved mesenchymal stromal cell therapies: what's the path forward? Proceedings of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) Annual Meeting Roundtable held in May 2023, Palais des Congrès de Paris, Organized by the ISCT MSC Scientific Committee (2023)
  
  
• An International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSC) Committee perspectives on International Standards Organization/Technical Committee 276 Biobanking Standards for bone marrow-MSCs and umbilical cord tissue–derived MSCs for research purposes (2023)
  
  
• An ISCT MSC Committee Editorial on overcoming limitations in clinical trials of mesenchymal stromal cell therapy for COVID-19: Time for a global registry (2022)
  
  
• Consensus International Council for Commonality in Blood Banking Automation–International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy statement on standard nomenclature abbreviations for the tissue of origin of mesenchymal stromal cells (2021)
  
  
• Mesenchymal stromal cell variables influencing clinical potency: the impact of viability, fitness, route of administration and host predisposition (2021)
  
  

The Committee

Chair

Sowmya Viswanathan, PhD
June 2022 - Present

University Health Network
Toronto, Canada
ISCT Liaison Officer to ISO/TC276

Members

Francesco Dazzi, PhD
AstraZeneca
Great Abington, United Kingdom

Karen English, PhD
Maynooth University
Maynooth, Ireland

Dominique Farge, MD, PhD
Hospital St-Louis
Paris, France

Edwin M. Horwitz, MD, PhD
Emory University School of Medicine
United States

Jacques Galipeau, MD
ISCT President (June 2020-June 2022)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, United States
Co-Chair, ISCT 2016 Annual Meeting

Tracy Heng, PhD
Monash University
Clayton, Australia

Nadir Kadri, PhD, VMD
Karolinska Institute
Stockholm, Sweden

Mauro Krampera, MD, PhD
University of Verona
Verona, Italy

Claudia dos Santos, MD, FRCPC
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada

Manoj Lalu, MD, PhD, FRCPC
The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Ottawa, Canada

Katarina Le Blanc, MD, PhD
Karolinska University Hospital
Stockholm, Sweden
Co-Chair, ISCT 2017 MSC Series

Jan Nolta, PhD
University of California, Davis
Sacramento, United States
Co-Chair, ISCT 2018 MSC Pre-Conference Track

Nikita Patel, MSc, PhD
Inmune Bio
London, United Kingdom
ESP Leadership Development Program

Yufang Shi, PhD
Soochow University Institutes for Translational Medicine
Shanghai, China
Co-Chair, ISCT 2019 MSC Pre-Conference Track

Ali Shokoohmand, PhD
The University of Queensland
Brisbane, Australia
ESP Leadership Development Program

Daniel Weiss, MD, PhD
University of Vermont
Burlington, United States