Christian Capitini, MD, Awarded ICTR Pilot Grant with Jenny Gumperz, PhD

Christian Capitini, MD
Christian Capitini, MD

Congratulations to Principal Investigator Christian Capitini, MD, along with Co-PI Jenny Gumperz, PhD, Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology, and Fellow Nicholas Hess, PhD, on the funding of their pilot grant entitled, “Uncovering Predictive Cellular Biomarkers of Graft-Versus-Host-Disease (GVHD) Following Hematopoetic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT).” This $25,000 Translational Basic & Clinical Research pilot grant was funded by the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR), and the primary aim is to investigate whether circulating T cells show similar indicators of activation in human HSCT patients who go on to develop aGVHD (acute graft-vs-host-disease). This will be accomplished by testing left-over blood routinely collected from HSCT patients here at UW for analysis. The results from this project have the potential to address an unmet need for early predictive biomarkers to assess aGVHD risk in HSCT patients. A link to all ICTR pilot awards for 2020 can be found here: https://ictr.wisc.edu/2020-pilot-awards-total-1-5-million-24-projects/