Scott Nicholas Furlan, MD

Dr. Scott Furlan studies the biology of blood stem cell transplantation and cellular immunotherapy for people with cancers and other diseases. He is learning how immune cells, such as T cells, behave during and after treatment, and how changes in immune cell behavior affect treatment outcomes. He aims to use what he learns improve transplantation and T-cell therapies for children. Dr. Furlan employs a method called single-cell genomics, which reveals an unprecedented level of detail about the individual cells in a sample. This technique shows him how immune cells respond to new biological surroundings, or microenvironments, throughout treatment. One particular research focus is immune dysfunction in graft-vs.-host disease, in which transplanted donor immune cells attack a patient’s healthy tissues. He also focuses on learning how to improve T-cell therapy and how transplanted donor immune cells affect cancers.