About Soligenix
Scientific Advisors
North American GVHD Medical Advisory Board
George B. McDonald, MD
Chair, Soligenix North American Medical Advisory Board
Professor of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine and Head, Gastroenterology/Hepatology Section, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Dr. McDonald is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a Member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he is head of the Gastroenterology/Hepatology Section. He also serves as the head of the Program in Complications of Cancer Treatment that has as its goals the reduction of morbidity from cancer treatment, improved survival, and prevention of late sequelae of cancer treatment. Dr. McDonald's research is focused on gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary complications of hematopoietic cell transplantation, specifically problems involving the toxicity of high-dose myeloablative regimens that are used to prepare patients for transplantation and acute and chronic Graft-versus-Host disease (GVHD) involving the gastrointestinal tract and liver. He has recently developed and validated a new method of assessing the severity of acute GVHD, called the acute GVHD Activity Index, an accurate predictor of transplant-related mortality. He was the lead investigator on the clinical trials that pioneered the use of topical corticosteroid therapy with oral beclomethasone dipropionate for GI GVHD.
Joseph Antin, MD
Chief, Adult Oncology Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Program, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dr. Antin heads the Stem Cell Transplant Program of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and is a founding member and past president of the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. He is a Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. His current clinical research interest focuses on pharmacologic control of GVHD using synergistic combinations of immunosuppressive drugs and to understand and harness the graft-versus-leukemia effect through non-myeloablative transplantation as well as selective depletion of T cells.
Joachim Deeg, MD
Professor, Medical Oncology, University of Washington and Member
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Dr. Deeg is a Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Washington and a Member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He has a long track record of investigations in preclinical models of GVHD and clinical trials for the prevention and treatment of GVHD. He has multiple peer-reviewed publications in the field and has co-edited a major Textbook on GVHD, now in its third edition. His current research interests at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center include the pathophysiology and therapy of the myelodysplastic syndrome, programmed cell death and GVHD.
James L.M. Ferrara, MD, DSc
Director, Combined Blood and Marrow Transplant Program
The University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Dr. Ferrara is Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, Professor of Internal Medicine, and the Ruth Heyn Professor of Pediatric Oncology in the University of Michigan Medical School. For 25 years, he has studied the immunobiology of allogeneic BMT, focusing on the pathophysiology of GVHD. He has been honored with an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship, and a Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He has served as program committee chair for the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, and chair of the steering committee for the BMT Clinical Trials Network. In 2009, Dr. Ferrara received an honorary Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Regensburg, and a Doctorate of Science from Oxford University.
Kirk Schultz, MD
Director, Childhood Cancer Research Program
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, British Columbia Children's Hospital
Dr. Schultz is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and Director of the Pediatric Oncology Research Group at British Columbia Children's Hospital. He is the recipient of the CIHR/Wyeth Clinical Research Chair in Transplantation. His major contributions have been in the immune therapy of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and the pathology of Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease. In 2000, he was elected the first Chair of the Canadian Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Clinical Trial Group, a group that includes all adult and pediatric BMT centers in Canada. Since 2004, he is the Pediatric BMT Consortium Chair and developed the first pediatric focused section at the American Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT).
Keith Sullivan, MD
James B. Wyngaarden Professor of Medicine
Chief of the Division of Medical Oncology and Transplantation
Duke University Medical Center
Dr. Sullivan is the James B. Wyngaarden Professor of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center where he was Chief, Division of Medical Oncology and Transplantation. He currently is the Director, Long-term Follow-up and Information Research Program, in the Division of Cellular Therapy. He has extensively published in the area of bone marrow transplantation with over 400 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. He is an electee of the Association of American Physicians and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He leads the national multi-center transplant study for systemic sclerosis within the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Trials for Autoimmune Disease at the NIH. His current research interests include the use of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for treatment of autoimmune diseases and sickle cell anemia.
Daniel Weisdorf, MD
Professor of Medicine and Director, Adult Blood and Marrow Transplant Program
University of Minnesota
Dr. Weisdorf is Professor of Medicine and Director of the University of Minnesota Blood and Marrow Transplant Program. He serves as the Scientific Director of the National Marrow Donor Program and Senior Research Advisor for the Center for International Bone Marrow Transplant Research, as well as Scientific Director for its Acute Leukemia Committee. He is the University Principal Investigator on the NIH-sponsored Bone Marrow Transplantation Clinical Trials Network. His clinical and research interests are in application of blood and marrow transplant therapies for hematologic malignancies as well as extensive study of the clinical complications of transplantation including opportunistic infections and GVHD.
