Thanks to the DCC, Sylvester’s Adult Stem Cell Transplant Program has grown significantly, celebrating its 1,500 transplant this past year. Dr. Komanduri credits DCC funding for being better able to address the needs of leukemia patients in South Florida. Today, Sylvester can transplant nearly anyone who needs this critical cellular therapy.

For several years, the Komanduri laboratory has focused on developing new ways to deliver transplants to patients without complications. 15-MMUD is a clinical trial funded by the DCC. Through this program, the team is optimizing mismatched transplants — in which patients do not have exact matches with their donors — so patients are still able to receive transplants without the risk of complications. Sylvester has become the largest mismatched donor transplant center in the United States.

Dr. Komanduri and his team have been instrumental in the development of immunotherapy trials at Sylvester for cellular therapy, including CAR T-cell therapy. A sample of a patient's T cells are collected from the blood, then modified to produce special structures called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) on their surface. When these CAR T cells are reinfused into the patient, the new receptors enable them to latch onto the patient's tumor cells and destroy them. Sylvester is currently one of the busiest cancer centers in the country for this type of therapy.

Dr. Komanduri also has a particular interest in studying how infection impacts immunocompromised patients, and how the immune system, in both transplant and non-transplant patients, controls viruses. His advances in this area highlight how research often interconnects and can have applications beyond acute problems in cancer to broader problems in science and humanity.