ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanderson Rocha, M.D., Ph.D., recognized throughout the world as a respected leader in the field of cord blood stem cell transplantation, has joined the team at CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank. Dr. Rocha's extensive experience and knowledge in transplant medicine and stem cell biology will provide a significant contribution to CORD:USE. "We're excited and honored to have Dr. Rocha, an internationally acclaimed expert in cord blood stem cell transplantation, as a member of our highly esteemed team," said Edward Guindi MD, President and CEO of CORD:USE.
Dr. Rocha is a professor of Hematology and the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at the University of Oxford, UK. He also serves as the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Hospital Sirio Libanes and Children's Hospital of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is the Scientific Director of the Eurocord Project and is on the Editorial Board of Bone Marrow Transplantation. Dr. Rocha is an internationally renowned speaker regarding the use of unrelated and related hematopoietic stem cells in transplants. He has published more than 200 papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology, British Journal of Hematology, and other peer reviewed publications.
Dr. Rocha continues to contribute significantly to the development and refinement of the therapeutic applications of cord blood stem cells. Due to his expertise, he was elected by the European Transplant Centers as Chairman of the Acute Leukemia Working Party of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) from 2004 to 2010.
"I am very honored to be a member of the distinguished team at CORD:USE which includes my colleagues who are pioneers in cord blood science, banking and transplantation. I look forward to continuing to work with them to advance the use of cord blood transplantation to treat many more patients in the future," said Dr. Rocha.
Dr. Rocha joins other highly respected leaders and pioneers in the field of cord blood stem cell transplantation on the CORD:USE team:
- Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, Medical Director of CORD:USE Public and Family Cord Blood Banks, is an internationally renowned pioneering cord blood expert who performed the first successful unrelated cord blood transplant in 1993. She is the Director of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Duke University and her program has performed over 1,200 cord blood transplants and more pediatric cord blood transplants than any program worldwide.
- Dr. Hal Broxmeyer, Founder of CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank, is internationally recognized as a founder of the field of cord blood stem cell banking. He was the President of the American Society of Hematology in 2010. Dr. Broxmeyer is a Distinguished Professor, Indiana University; Professor, Microbiology and Immunology and is widely recognized as one of the foremost experts in the world in cord blood stem cell science.
- Dr. John Wagner is the world renowned cord blood expert who discovered that two partially matched umbilical cord blood units could be safely used to treat larger patients for whom a single unit was not adequate. He was also the first to use umbilical cord blood to treat leukemia in 1990. Dr. Wagner is the Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation at the University of Minnesota (UM) and the Scientific Director of Clinical Research of the Stem Cell Institutes at UM. His program has performed approximately 1,200 cord blood transplants including more adult cord blood transplants than any other program worldwide.
- Dr. Eliane Gluckman, performed the world's first successful related cord blood transplant in 1988. She is a Professor of Hematology at the University of Paris. She is the President of the European School of Hematology and the President of Eurocord, the International Registry on Cord Blood Transplantation, which has 47 participating countries. Dr. Gluckman is a founding member and former President of the European Group of Bone Marrow Transplantation (EBMT).
- Dr. Alan Levine serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of CORD:USE. Dr. Levine enjoyed a highly successful 25 year career with the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") where he was most recently the Director of the Blood Disease Program of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH. In this capacity, Dr. Levine was responsible for initiating the bone marrow and umbilical cord blood research programs at the NIH.
About CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank, Inc.
CORD:USE operates leading public and family cord blood banks. CORD:USE Public Cord Blood Bank is one of the high quality cord blood banks selected and funded by HRSA of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help build the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI). CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank has entered into agreements with hospitals across the country to provide mothers the option to donate their babies' cord blood. CORD:USE cord blood units are listed in the NCBI through the National Marrow Donor Program's Registry and are distributed to transplanters, throughout the country and the world. CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank protects family banked cord blood units utilizing similar high-quality cord blood banking practices and technologies that are used in our leading public cord blood bank in its state-of-the-art laboratory. For more information, please visit our website www.corduse.com, or contact Michael Ernst at 407.667.3000.
SOURCE CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank