Jose Cancelas, MD, PhD

Dr. Cancelas received his MD from Autonomous University of Madrid in 1990, followed by his residency in hematology and hematotherapy at Hospital Ramon y Cajal. Dr. Cancelas completed a fellowship at the University of Cincinnati, Hoxworth Blood Center in 2003. Dr. Cancelas joined the staff of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) in 2001. He most recently served as the Director of Hoxworth Blood Center before joining DFCI in 2024 as the Executive Director of the Connell and O'Reilly Families Cell Manipulation Core.  Jose A. Cancelas is a physician-scientist with a broad background in transfusion medicine, cell therapies, hematology and stem cell biology.

His basic biology laboratory has been pivotal in the elucidation of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of hematopoietic cells through the Rho family of GTPases in health and disease. We provided the basis for understanding of the physiological cell-autonomous and microenvironment/cytokine signaling and metabolic/mitochondrial dependent mechanisms in the context of myeloid progenitor migration and bone marrow retention. His group also defined the mechanisms that control oncogenic tyrosine kinase signals dependent transformation in leukemic progenitors and identifying specific intrinsic and microenvironment-dependent signaling through Rho GTPases. Through hematopoietic differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells from severe congenital neutropenia patients, his laboratory has unveiled the pathogenetic mechanisms of neutropenia in patients with ELANE mutations. His laboratory has also developed specific methods for the characterization of iPSC from the progenitor cell biology consortium.His translational group has optimized methods of progenitor and validated novel methods to preserve and store platelets, red cells and T cells in clinical multi-center trials and is now actively searching for the mechanisms that control cold platelet damage and identified key molecular signals and methods to prevent cold storage damage and lyophilized platelets. Finally, his group has generated first-in-human clinical data for a variety of biological therapies.