Skip to Main Content

Cell Therapy

Clinical Research Team

Objectives:

  • To build a portfolio of the investigational cellular therapies program with a primary goal to meet patient’s needs and to improve health outcomes.
  • To assist in the development, understanding, characterization, and approval of new cellular therapies for the broader research community.

Research Team Meetings: Wednesday @ 2:30pm - 3:30pm

Cell Therapy Team Leaders

  • Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology); Co-Director Adult CAR T-Cell Therapy Program, Hematology; Co-Leader, Cellular Therapy Clinical Research Team, Yale Cancer Center; Co-Chair, Cellular Therapy (CT)-SAFE Committee, Yale Cancer Center

Members

  • Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology)

    Noffar Bar, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology) at Yale School of Medicine and completed her internship and residency at the Mount Sinai Hospital and her fellowship at Yale. She received her medical degree from the American Medical Program at Tel Aviv University in New York. Dr. Bar is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Hematology, and the International Myeloma Society. Dr. Bar’s research is focused on multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders. She specializes in all treatment modalities for myeloma including CAR T-cell therapy and stem cell transplant. She received grant support through the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s Young Investigator Award for her work looking at the prevention of multiple myeloma. Dr. Bar is dedicated to improving treatments for myeloma patients through innovative clinical trials. Additionally, Dr. Bar is a medical educator and a member of the Classical Hematology Disease team at Yale. She is interested in promoting high value care for hematology patients.
  • Professor of Medicine (Hematology) and of Dermatology; Director, Multidisciplinary T cell Lymphoma Program, Hematology; Scientific Leader, Lymphoma CRT, Yale Cancer Center

    Dr. Francine Foss, Professor of Medicine in the Section of Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center, is an internationally recognized clinician and clinical researcher with expertise in adult lymphomas and in stem cell transplantation. She has developed and tested therapies that have been used to treat thousands of cancer patients, and her research has substantially impacted the field of stem cell research, benefiting patients at Yale and around the world. Dr. Foss has brought a nationally established clinical trials program to Yale Cancer Center. In her previous position at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston, she designed, initiated, and directed multi-center national clinical trials which led to FDA approval of several novel therapies for lymphomas. One of these, Interleukin-2- Diphtheria toxin fusion protein, was the first FDA-approved fusion protein biologic drug and the first drug to be FDA approved for the treatment of T-cell lymphoma. In her laboratory work, she investigated and elucidated the mechanism by which extracorporeal photopheresis modulated antigen presenting cells, leading to a reduction in graft-vs-host disease in patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplant. These findings led to the initiation of two National Cancer Institute-sponsored trials to confirm these results in patients with lymphoma and myelodysplastic syndrome. Dr. Foss is a member of the Stem Cell Therapy clinical program at Smilow Cancer Hospital. Learn more about Dr. Foss>> Dr. Foss is a world expert in T cell Lymphomas. She has pioneered several novel therapies for T cell lymphomas and has been a leader in many national studies. She developed and initiated the first national registry for T cell lymphomas in the United States and is a founder and co-chairman of the T CELL Forum, the preeminent international T cell lymphoma research meeting. She is a co-founder of the United States Cutaneous Lymphoma Consortium and currently serves as its President. She has been a Director of the international T-cell Project to research treatment and biology of T-cell lymphomas and serves on the NCCN panel of experts for T-cell lymphomas. As a translational researcher in T cell Lymphomas, she currently is collaborating with a number of laboratories and scientists at Yale to identify molecular targets in T Cell Lymphoma and recently was awarded a grant through the PITCH program for the state of Connecticut to develop a promising small molecule therapeutic for a rare form of lymphoma. Dr. Foss currently leads the multi-disciplinary T-cell Lymphoma clinical team at the Smilow Cancer Center and co-directs the Cutaneous Lymphoma Program at Yale with Dr. Michael Girardi. Her clinical practice at Smilow Cancer Hospital attracts patients from around the world.
  • Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology); Co-Director Adult CAR T-Cell Therapy Program, Hematology; Co-Leader, Cellular Therapy Clinical Research Team, Yale Cancer Center; Co-Chair, Cellular Therapy (CT)-SAFE Committee, Yale Cancer Center

  • Professor of Internal Medicine (Hematology); Acting Director, Stem Cell Transplantation; Chairman, Car-T Cell Joint Steering Committee; Director, Unrelated Donor Transplant Program, Stem Cell Transplantation; Co-Director, Immune Effector Cell Therapy; Co-Director, Adult CAR T-Cell Therapy Program

    Dr. Seropian is a Professor of Medicine in the department of Internal Medicine, Section of Hematology, Yale University School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from George Washington University School of Medicine and completed residency and fellowship training at Yale-New Haven Hospital/Yale University School of Medicine in 1996.  Dr. Seropian serves as Interim Director of the Stem Cell Transplant Program, Co-Director, Immune Effector Cell Therapy, and Chairman, Car-T Cell Joint Steering Committee, Yale-New Haven Hospital. Dr. Seropian’s research interests include methods to improve the outcomes of transplantation through use of novel anti-cancer agents and new methods of treating graft versus host disease