PhD Student
Email: bkrupcza [at] mit . edu
he/him/his
Enhancing cell therapy for treatment of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
Cell therapy – using living cells as drugs for patients – holds exciting potential for treating diseases that have been refractory to more conventional therapeutic approaches. Specifically, mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) have many innate properties that make them attractive for therapeutic use, including wound tropism and immunomodulatory action. Despite their promise, MSC therapies have had few translational successes and have been hindered by batch-to-batch inconsistency in therapeutic efficacy. We believe a substantial driving force for this inconsistency is the genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity in MSC populations created by conventional manufacturing strategies. My research seeks to: 1) enable novel manufacturing strategies to mitigate MSC heterogeneity at the proper scale for point-of-care product release; 2) explore priming strategies to enhance MSC therapeutic efficacy. My efforts are directed within the context of addressing Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), a prevalent indication with high mortality and few standard-of-care treatment options.