CORD:USE Team of Cord Blood Experts
CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank is directed by an unparalleled team of the world’s leaders in cord blood banking, research and transplantation. We encourage all expectant parents to conduct a web search of the names of the CORD:USE team, or to see how the CORD:USE team has contributed to the history of cord blood banking and transplantation, please click here. You will find that the CORD:USE team consists of many of the founders of the field of cord blood transplantation, the leading cord blood scientists, the world’s top transplant physicians and many of the people recognized as the world’s foremost cord blood experts. The experts on the CORD:USE team have experience with thousands of cord blood transplants.
The Founder of CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank is Hal Broxmeyer, Ph.D. Dr. Broxmeyer is internationally recognized as a founder of the field of cord blood stem cell banking and transplantation. He has since authored over 600 publications on cord blood stem cell science. He was the President of the American Society of Hematology ("ASH") in 2010. ASH is the world’s largest professional society, with over 16,000 members from 97 countries, concerned with the causes and treatments of blood disorders.
The Medical Director of CORD:USE Public Cord Blood Bank and CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank is Joanne Kurtzberg, M.D. Dr. Kurtzberg is recognized as one of the world’s most experienced cord blood transplant physicians and is a renowned cord blood expert. She performed the world’s first successful allogeneic cord blood transplant in 1993, and under her direction, the Duke University Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program has since performed approximately 1,000 cord blood transplants, having performed more cord blood transplants in children than any other program worldwide. She is the Co-Chair of the National Marrow Donor Program’s Cord Blood Advisory Group and a member of the HRSA Advisory Council on Blood Stem Cell Transplantation.
The Director of CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank is Alan Levine, Ph.D. Dr. Levine is the former Director of the National Institutes of Health’s ("NIH") Blood Disease Program at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute ("NHLBI"). While at the NIH, Dr. Levine created the Bone Marrow and Cord Blood Research Programs at the NHLBI, and under his direction at the NHLBI, the first federally funded cord blood banking program was initiated. He has received numerous honors and awards in recognition of his success in directing national multicenter programs in hematology research.
The Chief Clinical Scientific Advisor of CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank is John E. Wagner, M.D. Dr. Wagner is the Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Scientific Director of Clinical Research of the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota which is one of the nation’s most active cord blood transplant centers with nearly 1,000 cord blood transplants, having performed more transplants in adults than any other program worldwide. He and his team were the first to use umbilical cord blood in the treatment of leukemia in 1990 and 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.
The Director of International Operations of CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank is Eliane Gluckman, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Gluckman is a Professor of Hematology at University of Paris VII. She is the pioneering transplanter who performed the first successful cord blood transplant in the world in Paris in 1988. She is the President of Eurocord, which is the International Registry on Cord Blood Transplantation with 47 participating countries, and is the President of the European School of Hematology.
To read biographies on the entire CORD:USE Leadership Team, please click here.