Program Co-leader: Transplant Biology and Therapy Research Program
Director, Department of Pediatrics, Hematology-Oncology and Blood Marrow Transplantation
Director, Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics
Co-Director, Center for Translational Medicine
Professor, Department of Pediatrics

wagne002@umn.edu
612-626-2961 — office
Preferred method of contact: phone

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

Dr. Wagner is a professor of pediatrics and director of the Division of Hematology-Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation. He currently holds two endowed chairs — Variety Club Chair in Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics and is the first recipient of the Children's Cancer Research Fund Hageboeck Chair in Pediatric Oncology. Previously he held the Albert and Eva Corniea Chair of Clinical Research; he was also the first recipient of this chair. Dr. Wagner is the scientific director of clinical research of the Stem Cell Institute. He is internationally recognized as an expert in the field of stem cells and use of unrelated hematopoietic stem cell transplant.

Dr. Wagner received his M.D. degree at Jefferson Medical College in 1981, completed his internship and residency in Pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine in 1984 and postdoctoral fellowship in Hematology-Oncology at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1987, where he remained until joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 1991. He is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric hematology/oncology.

Dr. Wagner's research is focused on the development of novel strategies for preventing the immunologic complications of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, namely through bone marrow graft engineering and the use of neonatal umbilical cord blood. In collaboration with Catherine Verfaillie, M.D., his investigations also include ex vivo expansion of umbilical cord blood stem cells and multipotent adult progenitor cells (MAPC) as well as gene transfer studies in patients with Fanconi anemia. He has also pioneered use of embryo selection to "create" a perfectly matched donor. Dr. Wagner has authored more than 180 articles and book chapters on the subject of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, is a member of numerous professional societies and was elected into the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 2000 and Association of Physicians in 2006. He co-chairs the Committee on Alternative Stem Cell Sources of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry and has served on the board of directors of the National Marrow Donor Program since January 2002.

Read about Dr. Wagner's experience and thoughts on umbilical cord blood transplantation.

Honors and Awards

1981 Dean Marie Baines Award for Excellence in Pediatrics, Jefferson Medical College
1981 Magna Cum Laude, Jefferson Medical College
1990-1993 Recipient, American Cancer Society Clinical Oncology Career Development Award
2000 Elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation
2001 Tenth Clinical Scholar Award, University of Minnesota Medical School and Fairview-University Medical Center
2002 Recognition of Excellence, Academic Health Center, University of Minnesota
2002 Pioneer Award for Therapeutic Advancement Fanconi Anemia Research Fund
2003 1st Recipient of the Brady Kohn Foundation Award
2004 Invited speaker on the Clinical Application of Stem Cells at the United Nations
2005 Testified before theUnited States Senate on the effectiveness of umbilical cord blood prior to passage of the Stem Cell Act of 2005
2006 Elected to Association of American Physicians

Research Interests

1. Umbilical cord blood transplantation in children and adults
   — Ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic stem cells
   — Double unit transplantation
   — Non-myeloablative preparative therapies
   — Co-infusion of T-regulatory cells
   — Graft vs. Leukemia effector therapies
   
2. Fanconi anemia
   — Novel preparative therapies
   — Gene therapy — multipotent adult stem cell
   — Phenotype-genotype correlations (collaboration with Rockefeller University)
   — Pathophysiology
   
3. Multipotent Adult Stem Cells (MAPC) in tissue repair
   — Translational development/large scale manufacture of MAPC
   — Evaluation of MAPC therapeutic potential in congenital and acquired disorders

Selected Publications

Porter SB, Liu B, Rogosheske J, Levine BL, June CH, Kohl VK, Wagner JE, Miller JS, Blazar BR. Suppressor Function of Umbilical Cord Blood (UCB) Derived CD4+CD25+ T-Regulatory (Treg) Cells Exposed to Graft-Versus-Host Disease (GVHD) Drugs. Transplantation. 2006;82:23-29.

Eapen M, Rubinstein P, Zhang MJ, Camitta B, Stevens C, Cairo MS, Davies SM, Doyle JJ, Kurtzberg J, Pulsipher MA, Ortega JJ, Scaradavou A, Horowitz MM, Wagner JE.Comparable long-term survival after unrelated and HLA-matched sibling donor hematopoietic stem cell transplantations for acute leukemia in children younger than 18 months. J. Clin Oncology. 2006;24:145-151.

Wagner JE, Thompson JS, Carter SL, Kernan NA. Effect of Graft-versus-Host Disease Prophylaxis on 3-Year Disease Free Survival in Recipients of Unrelated Donor Bone Marrow Transplantation: Results of a Multi-Center, Randomized Phase II-III Trial. Lancet 2005;366:733-741.

Barker J, Hough RE, van Burik J, DeFor T, MacMillan ML, O'Brien MR, Wagner JE. Serious infections after unrelated donor transplantation in 136 children: impact of stem cell source. Biol Blood Marrow Tranplant. 2005;11:362-370.

Miller JS, Soignier Y, Panoskaltsis-Mortari A, McNearney S, Yun G, Fautsch SK, McKenna D, Le C, Defor TE, Burns LJ, Orchard PJ, Blazar BR, Wagner JE, Slungaard A, Weisdorf DJ, Okazaki IJ, McGlave PB. Successful adoptive transfer and in vivo expansion of human haploidentical NK cells in patients with cancer. Blood. 2005;105:3051-3057.

Wagner JE, Kahn JP, Wolf SM, Lipton FM. Preimplantation testing to produce an HLA matched donor infant. JAMA 2004;292:803-804.

Eapen M, Horowitz MM, Klein JP, Champlin RE, Loberiza FR, Ringden O, Wagner JE. Higher mortality after allogeneic peripheral-blood transplantation compared with bone marrow in children and adolescents: the Histocompatibility and Alternate Stem Cell Source Working Committee of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry. J Clin Oncol. 2004;22:4872-4880.

Barker JN, Weisdorf DJ, DeFor TE, Blazar, McGlave PB, Miller JS, Verfaillie CM, Wagner JE. Transplantation of 2 partially HLA-matched umbilical cord blood units to enhance engraftment in adults with hematologic malignancy. Blood 2004;105:1343-1347.

Wagner JE, Verfaillie CM. Ex vivo expansion of umbilical cord blood hemopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Exp Hematol. 2004;32:412-413.

Laughlin MJ, M Eapen, Rubinstein P, Wagner JE, Zhang MJ, Champlin RE, Stevens CE, Barker JN, Gale RP, Lazarus HM, Marks DI, van Rood JJ, Scaravadou A, Horowtiz MM. Outcomes after transplantation of cord blood or bone marrow from unrelated donors in adults with leukemia. New Engl J Med. 2004;22:2265-2275.

Wagner JE, Tolar J, Levran O, Scholl T, Deffenbaugh A, Satagopan J, Ben-Porat L, Mah K, Batish S, Kutler D, MacMillan M, Hanenberg H, Auerbach A. Germline mutations in BRCA2: shared genetic susceptibility to breast cancer, early onset leukemia, and Fanconi anemia. Blood 2004;103:3226-3229.

Grewal SS, MacMillan ML, Kahn JP, Ramsay NKC, Wagner JE. Successful hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for Fanconi anemia from an unaffected HLA-genotype-identical sibling selected using preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Blood 2004;103:1147-1151.

Barker JN, Wagner JE. Umbilical cord blood transplantation for the treatment of cancer. Nat Rev Cancer 2003;3:526-532.

Wolf SJ, Kahn JP, Wagner, JE. Using preimplantation genetic diagnosis to create a stem cell donor: issues, guidelines & limits. J Law Med Ethics 2003;31:327-339.

Barker JN, Weisdorf DJ, DeFor TE, Blazar BR, Miller JS, Wagner JE. Rapid and complete donor chimerism in adult recipients of unrelated donor umbilical cord blood transplantation after reduced-intensity conditioning. Blood 2003;102:1915-1919.

Wagner JE, Barker JN, DeFor T, Baker KS, Blazar BR, Eide C, Goldman A, Kersey J, Krivit W, MacMillan M, Orchard P, Peters C, Weisdorf DJ, Ramsay NKC, Davies SM. Transplantation of unrelated donor umbilical cord blood in 102 patients with malignant and nonmalignant diseases: influence of CD34 cell dose and HLA disparity on treatment-related mortality and survival. Blood 2002;100:1611-1618.

Grewal SS, Barker JN, Davies SM, and Wagner JE. Unrelated donor hematopoietic cell transplantation: marrow or umbilical cord blood? Blood 2003;101:4233-4344.

Barker JN, Weisdorf DJ, Wagner JE. Creation of a double chimera after the transplantation of umbilical-cord blood from two partially matched unrelated donors. N Engl J Med. 2001;344:1870-1871.

Gregory JJ, Wagner JE, Verlander PC, Levran O, Batish SD, Eide CR, Steffenhagen A, Hirsch B, Auerbach AD. Somatic mosaicism in Fanconi anemia: evidence of genotypic reversion in lymphohematopoietic stem cells. Proc Nat Acad Sci. 2001;98:2532-2537.

Barker JN, Davies SM, DeFor T, Ramsay NKC, Weisdorf DJ, Wagner JE. Survival after transplantation of unrelated donor umbilical cord blood is comparable to that of human leukocyte antigen-matched unrelated donor bone marrow: results of a matched-pair analysis. Blood 2001;97:2957-2961.