Miami, Florida, United States
Dr. Guenther Koehne is an internationally recognized cancer specialist who joined the Miami Cancer Institute to lead the blood and marrow transplantation, hematologic oncology and immunotherapy program. He was recruited from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical focus is treating patients with hematologic malignancies. He is a renowned expert in allogeneic (donor-derived) hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, myelodysplastic syndrome, and multiple myeloma. As the Medical Director of the Cytotherapy Laboratory (Bone Marrow Transplantation Laboratory) at MSKCC, he also established new T cell depletion techniques and other methods to manipulate donor stem cell products that optimizes patients’ outcomes. In this particular type of stem cell transplantation, a specific subset of cells (T cells) from the donor’s stem cells is removed before the transplant; this significantly reduces the so-called graft-versus-host reactions. Dr. Koehne is the leader of clinical trials to study the effectiveness of T cell-depleted transplants from related and unrelated donors in patients with high-risk and relapsed hematologic malignancies and is currently the principal investigator of multiple innovative first-in-human clinical trials aiming to improve the outcome for patients with acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome and multiple myeloma. His research has also focused on ways to reduce rates and to treat viral complications and disease recurrence following allogeneic stem cell transplantations. He is regarded in the medical community as a pioneer in developing specific donor-derived immune cells (T lymphocytes) to treat both the viral complications of transplantation and disease relapse following transplantation. This treatment approach has been termed “adoptive immunotherapy” and is being administered in several active clinical trials. Dr. Koehne is the Founder and Director of the Global Miami Cancer Institute Summit on Immunotherapies for Hematologic Malignancies, bringing the leaders in their respective fields to Miami every year. Dr. Koehne was also appointed to Professor & Chairman of the Department of Translational Medicine at Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (HWCOM) of Florida International University.
Cell Therapy Laboratory, Dept of Clinical Laboratories.
Adult Bone Marrow Transplantation Service, Division of Hematologic Oncology, Department of Medicine, Memorial Hospital, New York, NY.