Research Program: Transplant Biology & Therapy
Associate Professor, Stem Cell Institute and Department of Medicine
McKnight Land-Grant Professor

kaufm020@umn.edu
612-624-0922 — office
612-626-4758 — lab
Preferred method of contact: e-mail

Dr. Kaufman's clinical profile
(University of Minnesota Physicians Web site)

Dr. Kaufman is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation. Dr. Kaufman received his M.D. from Mayo Medical School and Ph.D. in immunology from Mayo Graduate School. He did his residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the University of Wisconsin, he also did post-doctoral research with Dr. James Thomson, where he was the first to derive blood cells from human embryonic stem cells. Since 2002, Dr. Kaufman has been at the University of Minnesota, where he continues this research on hematopoiesis from human stem cells as a means to better understand and treat patients with hematologic malignancies. Dr. Kaufman also does clinical work in the adult Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinic.

Research Interests

Research in the Kaufman lab in the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota uses embryonic stem (ES) cells to understand the earliest stages of blood development. Individuals produce billions of blood cells every day. The stimuli and genes that allow individual hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to produce mature progeny such as red blood cells, white blood cells, lymphocytes, and platelets has been studied in considerable depth and serves as a model system in developmental biology. However, how hematopoietic cell populations are derived during early embryogenesis remains poorly understood, especially in the human system. Our studies focus on use of human ES cells to investigate various aspects of human blood cell development. Recently, we have derived a population of lymphocytes termed natural killer (NK) cells from human ES cells. NK cells are normally found in the body as part of the immune system. We find that these human ES cell-derived NK cell are able to kill tumor cells, just like other NK cell populations. Therefore, human ES cells should be a new source for novel cell-based treatment against cancer.

Selected Publications

Kaufman, Dan S., E.T. Hanson, R.L. Lewis, R.Auerbach, and J.A. Thomson. (2001). Hematopoietic colony-forming cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 98:10716-10721

Odorico, J.S., Dan S. Kaufman, and J.A. Thomson. (2001). Multilineage differentiation from human embryonic stem cell lines. Stem Cells. 19:193-204.

Kaufman, Dan S., R.L. Lewis, E.T. Hanson, R. Auerbach, J.Plendl, and J.A. Thomson. (2004). Functional Endothelial Cells Derived From Rhesus Monkey Embryonic Stem Cells. Blood. 103: 1325-1332.

Tian, X., J.Morris, J. Linehan, and Dan S. Kaufman. (2004). Cytokine requirements differ for stroma and embryoid body-mediated mediated hematopoiesis from human embryonic stem cells. Experimental Hematology. 32, 1000-1009.

Woll, P.S., C.H. Martin, J.S. Miller, and Dan S. Kaufman. (2005). Human embryonic stem cell-derived natural killer cells acquire functional receptors and cytolytic activity. J. of Immunology. 175: 5095-5103.

Tian X., P.S. Woll, J.K. Morris, J.L. Linehan, and Dan S. Kaufman. (2006). Hematopietic Engraftment of Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Blood Cells is Regulated by Host Innate Immunity. Stem Cells. 24:1370-80.

Cameron, CM, W-S. Hu, and Dan S. Kaufman. (2006). Improved Development of Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Embryoid Bodies by Stirred Vessel Cultivation. Biotechnology and Bioengineering. 94: 938-948.

Flynn, Catherine and Dan S. Kaufman. (2007). Donor Cell Leukemia: Insight into cancer stem cells and the stem cell niche. Blood 109: 2688-2692.

Woll, Petter and Dan S. Kaufman. (2007) Derivation of Functional Lymphocytes from Human Embryonic Stem Cells. In: Sullivan, Eggan, and Cowan, eds. Human Embryonic Stem Cells- A Practical Guide. John Wiley & Sons, London, UK. 287-298.

Andrew Wilber, Jonathan L. Linehan, Xinghui Tian, Petter S. Woll, Julie K. Morris, Lalitha R. Belur, R. Scott McIvor, and Dan S. Kaufman. (2007) Use of the Sleeping Beauty Transposon System for Genetic Engineering of Human Embryonic Stem Cell-derived Hematopoietic Cells. Stem Cells, 25; 2919-2927.

Woll, Petter S. J.K. Morris, M.S. Painschab, R.K. Marcus, A.D. Kohn, T.L. Biechele, R.T. Moon, and D.S. Kaufman. (2008). Wnt signaling promotes hemato-endothelial cell development from human embryonic stem cells. Blood, 111: 122-131.

Tian, Xinghui, and Dan S. Kaufman. (2008). Differentiation of embryonic stem cells towards hematopoietic cells: Progress and Pitfalls. Curr Opin Hematol. 2008 Jul;15(4):312-8. Review.

Martin, Colin H., P. S. Woll, J.-C. Zuniga-Pflucker and Dan S. Kaufman. (2008). Differences in lymphocyte developmental potential between human embryonic stem cell and umbilical cord blood-derived hematopoietic progenitor cells. Blood. 2008 Jul 11. [Epub ahead of print]