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

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, 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.