Research Program, Transplant Biology and Therapy
Assistant Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
Scientific and Medical Director, Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics
Medical Director, Clinical Cell Therapy Laboratory, University of Minnesota Medical Center

mcken020@umn.edu
612-624-5736 — office
612-625-8204 — lab
Preferred contact method: phone

Dr. McKenna received his M.D. in 1997 from Saint Louis University School of Medicine. He completed residency training in Laboratory Medicine and Pathology as well as subspecialty training in Transfusion Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Dr. McKenna has been a member of the faculty at the University of Minnesota since 2003.

Research Interests

Dr. McKenna's research centers on the translational ("bench to bedside") development of projects of several basic and clinical researchers at the University of Minnesota. Current and developing projects include clinical trials with natural killer cells [peripheral blood-derived, umbilical cord blood (UCB)-derived] and T regulatory (CD4+/CD25+) cells (peripheral blood-derived, umbilical cord blood-derived) in support of bone marrow transplantation, allogeneic large multivalent immunogen (LMI) vaccine [cell line based cancer vaccine: melanoma (SK23) and breast cancer (SKBR3)], marrow mononuclear cells and cardiosphere-derived cells for cardiac regenerative medicine, skeletal myoblasts, dendritic cell-based vaccines, and mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) for a variety of applications. His pre-clinical research focuses on the isolation, characterization, expansion, and differentiation of stem cells from human UCB.

Selected Publications

McKenna D, Rupp C, Wagner J, McGlennen R, Hirsch B, Dolan M, Burger S, Hanson M, Jaszcz W, Nguyen P. Increased lymphoblast-like cells following umbilical cord blood stem cell transplantation do not predict recurrent acute leukemia. Leukemia 2002; 16:2171-72.

McKenna D, Eastlund T, Segall M, Noreen H, Park S. HLA alloimmunization in patients requiring ventricular assist device support. J. of Heart and Lung Transplantation 2002; 21:1218-24.

McKenna D, Kadidlo D, Sumstad D, McCullough J. Development and operation of a quality assurance system for deviations from standard operating procedures in a clinical cell therapy laboratory. Cytotherapy 2003; 5(4):314-22.

McCullough J, McKenna D, Kadidlo D, Schierman T, Wagner J. Issues in the quality of umbilical cord blood stem cells for transplantation. Transfusion 2005; 45: 832-841.

Miller JS, Soignier Y, Panoskaltsis-Mortari A, McNearny S, Yun G, Fautsch S, McKenna D, Le C, DeFor T, Burns L, Orchard P, Blazar BR, Slungaard A, Weisdorf D, Okazaki I, McGlave PB. Successful adoptive transfer and in vivo expansion of human haploidentical NK cells in cancer patients. Blood 2005; 105 (8): 3051-3057.

Laroche V, McKenna D, Moroff G, Schierman T, Kadidlo D, Clay M, McCullough J. Cell loss and recovery in umbilical cord blood processing: a comparison of post-thaw and post-wash samples. Transfusion 2005; 45:1909-1916.

Berger M, Adams S, Tigges B, Sprague S, Wang X, Collins D, McKenna D. Differentiation of Umbilical Cord Blood-Derived Multi-Lineage Progenitor Cells into Respiratory Epithelial Cells. Cytotherapy 2006; 8(5): 480-487.

Klein M, Kadidlo D, McCullough J, McKenna D, Burns L. Microbial contamination of hematopoietic stem cell products: incidence and clinical sequelae. Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation 2006; 12:1142-1149.

McKenna D, Sumstad D, Bostrom N, Kadidlo D, Fautsch S, McNearney S, DeWaard R, McGlave P, Weisdorf D, Wagner J, McCullough J, and Miller J. GMP-production of natural killer cells for immunotherapy: a six year single institution experience. Transfusion 2007; 47(3):520-528.

Brand A, Eichler H, Szczepiorkowski ZM, Hess JR, Kekomaki R, McKenna DH, Pamphilon D, Reems, J, Sacher RA, Takahashi TA, and van der Watering LMG for the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative. Viability does not necessarily reflect the hematopoietic progenitor cell potency of a cord blood unit: results of an interlaboratory exercise. Transfusion 2008; 48(3): 546-549.

Eichler H, Nguyen X, Roelen D, Celluzzi C, McKenna D, Pamphilon D, Blair A, Reed E, Takahashi T, Szczepiorkowski Z and the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative. Multi-center study on in vitro characterization of dendritic cells. Cytotherapy 2008; 10(1):21-9.

Thyagarajan B, Berger M, Sumstad D, and McKenna D. Loss of integrity of umbilical cord blood unit freezing bags: description and consequences. Transfusion 2008; 48(6): 1138-1142.

Mata C, Longmire EK, McKenna D, Glass KK, and Hubel A. Experimental study of diffusion-based extraction from a cell suspension. Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, early on-line publication DOI 10.1007/s10404-008-0265-9.

Gee A, Sumstad D, Stanson J, Watson P, Proctor J, Kadidlo D, Koch E, Sprague J, Wood D, Styers D, McKenna D, Gallelli J, Griffin D, Read EJ, Parish B, and Lindblad R. A multi-center comparison study between the Endosafe® PTS™ rapid release testing system and conventional test methods for detecting endotoxin in cell therapy products. Cytotherapy 2008; 10(4): 427-435.

Flores A, McKenna D, Montalban A, De la Cruz J, Wagner J, Bornstein R. Consistency of the initial cell acquisition procedure is critical to the standardization of CD34+ cell enumeration by flow cytometry: results of a pair-wise analysis of umbilical cord blood units and cryopreserved aliquots. Transfusion. 2009 Apr;49(4):636-47. Epub 2008 Dec 4.

Reed W, Noga SJ, Gee AP, Rooney CM, Wagner JE, McCullough J, McKenna DH, Whiteside TL, Donnenberg AD, Bake AK, Lindblad RW, Wagner EL, Mondoro TH. Production Assistance for Cellular Therapies (PACT): four-year experience from the United States National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) contract research program in cell and tissue therapies. Transfusion. 2009 Apr;49(4):786-96. Epub 2008 Dec 23. Review

Hummon D, Zantek ND, Sumstad D, Miller JS, McKenna DH. Transfusion-associated (TA) GVHD: A perspective from a cell therapy laboratory. Transfusion. 2009 May;49(5):1018-9.