Mardi 11 octobre 2022
17h00-18h00

New tools to personalize red cell therapy for patients with sickle cell disease
Stella T. Chou, MD

Dr. Stella Chou is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Chief of the Division of Transfusion Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She practices both Pediatric Hematology and Transfusion Medicine with a particular interest in patients with Sickle Cell Disease. Her work has demonstrated that inheritance of variant blood group antigens in patients with Sickle Cell Disease contributes to their high rate of red cell antibody formation. Ongoing work focuses on genetic matching of red cells, integrating molecular technologies into clinical transfusion medicine practice and developing novel tools for blood banks. Her laboratory uses induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to create customized iPSCs with rare blood group antigen combinations as renewable sources of red cells, and long read sequencing technology to improve our knowledge of the RH locus. Her goal is to identify new approaches to minimize alloimmunization, reduce complications and improve therapy.