Suzanne Ildstad, M.D.
Suzanne Ildstad, M.D., is the Director of the Institute for Cellular Therapeutics at the University of Louisville, the Jewish Hospital Distinguished Professor of Transplantation, and Professor in the School of Medicine's Department of Surgery. Her research on Improving the safety and availability of bone marrow transplantation and using mixed chimerism to induce tolerance to organ transplants and treat nonmalignant diseases such as sickle cell anemia, and autoimmune disorders is currently being applied clinically in a number Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved clinical trials.
Dr. Ildstad is a graduate of Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minn., and served a general surgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. While a medical staff fellow in immunology at the National Institutes of Health, she worked with Dr. David Sachs to establish the model for mixed hematopoietic stem cell chimerism. Following a pediatric surgery-transplant fellowship in Cincinnati, Dr. Ildstad joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, later moving to Allegheny University of the Health Sciences where she established the institute. Her team of researchers relocated to the University of Louisville in December of 1998.
Dr. Ildstad was inducted into the Institute of Medicine in 1997 for her pioneering work in cell-based theraputics. She holds several patents related to her research in expanding bone marrow transplantation to treat an array of diseases through graft engineering and partial marrow conditioning. She is the founding scientist of Regenerex, a biotechnology company that focuses on bone marrow graft engineering.
David Tollerud, M.D., M.P.H.
David Tollerud, M.D.,M.P.H., is Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Cellular Therapeutics, has extensive experience in epidemiology and population studies, particularly those involving the use of immunological management and data analysis activities in the Institute and the clinical specimen repository, which supports the trials.
Dr. Tollerud's medical degree is from Mayo Medical School and his master's degree in public health is from the Harvard School of Public Health. He trained at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston in internal medicine, followed by subspecialty training in pulmonology at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School. He began his research career as a National Cancer Institute medical staff fellow. He has specialty board certifications in internal, occupational, pulmonary and critical care medicine.