Search by Department


Additional NIH Doctors/Researchers

Meet Our Doctors


Portrait of Dr. David F. Stroncek
David F. Stroncek, MD

Chief, Cell Processing Section


Transfusion Medicine


MD, University of Minnesota Medical School
BS, University of Minnesota


Email: dstroncek@cc.nih.gov
Phone:301-402-3314

Portrait of Dr. David F. Stroncek
David F. Stroncek, MD

Chief, Cell Processing Section


Transfusion Medicine


MD, University of Minnesota Medical School
BS, University of Minnesota


Email: dstroncek@cc.nih.gov
Phone:301-402-3314


Dr. David F. Stroncek is working on developing new cellular therapies, improving existing cellular therapies, investigating the mechanisms of action of cellular therapies, identifying potency markers and developing potency assays.


A native of Minnesota, Dr. Stroncek completed his undergraduate and medical school degrees, an internal medicine residency, and a hematology/oncology fellowship at the University of Minnesota. He then joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology Department and later became medical director of the blood blank.

He helped establish the National Marrow Donor Program and was the organization's first medical director. During his four years as medical director of the NMDP, the program coordinated their first unrelated donor transplant and subsequently increased the number of marrow donations by unrelated individuals. He has served on several NMDP committees as president of the council of the NMDP and as a member of the NMDP board of directors.

Dr. Stroncek came to the NIH Clinical Center Department of Transfusion Medicine in 1996 as chief of the Laboratory Service Section. In this role, he directed the HLA and Transfusion Services Laboratories.

During his tenure, the HLA laboratory moved from a serological laboratory to a molecular testing laboratory that provided sequence-specific probe, high resolution sequence-specific primer, and sequence-based HLA genotyping. Under Dr. Stroncek's direction, the Transfusion Service Laboratory began genotyping RBC antigens and discovered that the low pH and high osmolarity of citrate anticoagulant in blood components caused RBCs from donors with sickle cell trait to occlude leukocyte reduction filters.

Dr. Stroncek became chief of the Cell Processing Section in 2007.

Under his direction the Section has collaborated with Institute Investigators to develop and implement methods to produce clinical Natural Killer cell, dendritic cell, bone marrow stromal cell, Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell and viral specific T cell products.

He has published more than 294 articles in scientific journals and has written several book chapters. He has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals.

See his Intramural Research Program bio page.

Amarnath S, Foley JE, Farthing DE, Gress RE, Laurence A, Eckhaus MA, Métais JY, Rose JJ, Hakim FT, Felizardo TC, Cheng AV, Robey PG, Stroncek DF, Sabatino M, Battiwalla M, Ito S, Fowler DH, Barrett AJ. Bone Marrow Derived Mesenchyme Stromal Cells Harness Purinergenic Signaling to Tolerize Human Th1 Cells In Vivo. Stem Cells. 2014 Dec 23. doi: 10.1002/stem.1934. [Epub ahead of print] PubMedPMID: 25532725.

Lee DW, Kochenderfer JN, Stetler-Stevenson M, Cui YK, Delbrook C, Feldman SA, Fry TJ, Orentas R, Sabatino M, Shah NN, Steinberg SM, Stroncek DF, Tschernia N, Yuan C, Zhang H, Zhang L, Rosenberg SA, Wayne AS, Mackall CL. T cells expressing CD19 chimeric antigen receptors for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children and young adults: a phase 1 dose-escalation trial. Lancet. 2015 Feb 7;385(9967):517-28. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61403-3. Epub 2014 Oct 13. PubMed PMID: 25319501.

Stroncek DF, Fellowes V, Pham C, Khuu H, Fowler DH, Wood LV, Sabatino M. Counter-flow elutriation of clinical peripheral blood mononuclear cell concentrates for the production of dendritic and T cell therapies. J Transl Med. 2014 Sep 17;12(1):241. doi: 10.1186/s12967-014-0241-y. PubMed PMID: 25223845; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4173057.

Jin P, Civini S, Zhao Y, De Giorgi V, Ren J, Sabatino M, Jin J, Wang H, Bedognetti D, Marincola F, Stroncek D. Direct T cell-tumour interaction triggers TH1 phenotype activation through the modification of the mesenchymal stromal cells transcriptional programme. Br J Cancer. 2014 Jun 10;110(12):2955-64. doi: 10.1038/bjc.2014.235. Epub 2014 May 8. PubMed PMID: 24809778; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4056054.

Yin F, Battiwalla M, Ito S, Feng X, Chinian F, Melenhorst JJ, Koklanaris E, Sabatino M, Stroncek D, Samsel L, Klotz J, Hensel NF, Robey PG, Barrett AJ. Bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells to treat tissue damage in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients: correlation of biological markers with clinical responses. Stem Cells. 2014 May;32(5):1278-88. doi: 10.1002/stem.1638. PubMed PMID: 24452962; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3991733.

Stroncek DF, Sabatino M, Ren J, England L, Kuznetsov SA, Klein HG, Robey PG. Establishing a bone marrow stromal cell transplant program at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Tissue Eng Part B Rev. 2014 Jun;20(3):200-5. doi: 10.1089/ten.TEB.2013.0529. Epub 2014 Feb 7. PubMed PMID: 24368014; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4030651.

Civini S, Jin P, Ren J, Sabatino M, Castiello L, Jin J, Wang H, Zhao Y, Marincola F, Stroncek D. Leukemia cells induce changes in human bone marrow stromal cells. J Transl Med. 2013 Dec 4;11:298. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-11-298. PubMed PMID: 24304929; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3882878.

Fowler DH, Mossoba ME, Steinberg SM, Halverson DC, Stroncek D, Khuu HM, Hakim FT, Castiello L, Sabatino M, Leitman SF, Mariotti J, Gea-Banacloche JC, Sportes C, Hardy NM, Hickstein DD, Pavletic SZ, Rowley S, Goy A, Donato M, Korngold R, Pecora A, Levine BL, June CH, Gress RE, Bishop MR. Phase 2 clinical trial of rapamycin-resistant donor CD4+ Th2/Th1 (T-Rapa) cells after low-intensity allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Blood. 2013 Apr 11;121(15):2864-74. doi: 10.1182/blood-2012-08-446872. Epub 2013 Feb 20. PubMed PMID: 23426943; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3624934.

Castiello L, Mossoba M, Viterbo A, Sabatino M, Fellowes V, Foley JE, Winterton M, Halverson DC, Civini S, Jin P, Fowler DH, Stroncek DF. Differential gene expression profile of first-generation and second-generation rapamycin-resistant allogeneic T cells. Cytotherapy. 2013 May;15(5):598-609. doi: 10.1016/j.jcyt.2012.12.008. Epub 2013 Jan 24. PubMed PMID: 23352462; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4148082.

Castiello L, Sabatino M, Zhao Y, Tumaini B, Ren J, Ping J, Wang E, Wood LV, Marincola FM, Puri RK, Stroncek DF. Quality controls in cellular immunotherapies: rapid assessment of clinical grade dendritic cells by gene expression profiling. Mol Ther. 2013 Feb;21(2):476-84. doi: 10.1038/mt.2012.89. Epub 2012 Nov Erratum in: Mol Ther. 2013 Feb;21(2):495. PubMed PMID: 23147403; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3594020.

Wang H, Jin P, Sabatino M, Ren J, Civini S, Bogin V, Ichim TE, Stroncek DF. Comparison of endometrial regenerative cells and bone marrow stromal cells. J Transl Med. 2012 Oct 5;10:207. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-10-207. PubMed PMID: 23038994; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3504519.

Jin J, Sabatino M, Somerville R, Wilson JR, Dudley ME, Stroncek DF, Rosenberg SA. Simplified method of the growth of human tumor infiltrating lymphocytes in gas-permeable flasks to numbers needed for patient treatment. J Immunother. 2012 Apr;35(3):283-92. doi: 10.1097/CJI.0b013e31824e801f. PubMed PMID: 22421946; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3315105.

Sabatino M, Ren J, David-Ocampo V, England L, McGann M, Tran M, Kuznetsov SA, Khuu H, Balakumaran A, Klein HG, Robey PG, Stroncek DF. The establishment of a bank of stored clinical bone marrow stromal cell products. J Transl Med. 2012 Feb 6;10:23. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-10-23. PubMed PMID: 22309358; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3309931.

Stroncek DF, Xing L, Chau Q, Zia N, McKelvy A, Pracht L, Sabatino M, Jin P. Stability of cryopreserved white blood cells (WBCs) prepared for donor WBC infusions. Transfusion. 2011 Dec;51(12):2647-55. doi: 10.1111/j.1537-2995.2011.03210.x. Epub 2011 Jun 9. PubMed PMID: 21658051; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3490490.

Castiello L, Stroncek DF, Finn MW, Wang E, Marincola FM, Clayberger C, Krensky AM, Sabatino M. 15 kDa Granulysin versus GM-CSF for monocytes differentiation: analogies and differences at the transcriptome level. J Transl Med. 2011 Apr 18;9:41. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-9-41. PubMed PMID: 21501511; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3094223.

Ren J, Jin P, Sabatino M, Balakumaran A, Feng J, Kuznetsov SA, Klein HG, Robey PG, Stroncek DF. Global transcriptome analysis of human bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) reveals proliferative, mobile and interactive cells that produce abundant extracellular matrix proteins, some of which may affect BMSC potency. Cytotherapy. 2011 Jul;13(6):661-74. doi: 10.3109/14653249.2010.548379. Epub 2011 Jan 20. PubMed PMID: 21250865; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3389819.

Park KU, Jin P, Sabatino M, Feng J, Civini S, Khuu H, Berg M, Childs R, Stroncek D. Gene expression analysis of ex vivo expanded and freshly isolated NK cells from cancer patients. J Immunother. 2010 Nov-Dec;33(9):945-55. doi: 10.1097/CJI.0b013e3181f71b81. PubMed PMID: 20948442; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3096009.

Jin P, Han TH, Ren J, Saunders S, Wang E, Marincola FM, Stroncek DF. Molecular signatures of maturing dendritic cells: implications for testing the quality of dendritic cell therapies. J Transl Med. 2010 Jan 15;8:4. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-8-4. PubMed PMID: 20078880; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2841589.

Donahue RE, Jin P, Bonifacino AC, Metzger ME, Ren J, Wang E, Stroncek DF. Plerixafor (AMD3100) and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) mobilize different CD34+ cell populations based on global gene and microRNA expression signatures. Blood. 2009 Sep 17;114(12):2530-41. doi: 10.1182/blood-2009-04-214403. Epub 2009 Jul 14. PubMed PMID: 19602709; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2746476.

Ren J, Jin P, Wang E, Marincola FM, Stroncek DF. MicroRNA and gene expression patterns in the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells. J Transl Med. 2009 Mar 23;7:20. doi: 10.1186/1479-5876-7-20. PubMed PMID: 19309508; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2669448.


NOTE: PDF documents require the free Adobe Reader.

This page last updated on 05/17/2021

You are now leaving the NIH Clinical Center website.

This external link is provided for your convenience to offer additional information. The NIH Clinical Center is not responsible for the availability, content or accuracy of this external site.

The NIH Clinical Center does not endorse, authorize or guarantee the sponsors, information, products or services described or offered at this external site. You will be subject to the destination site’s privacy policy if you follow this link.

More information about the NIH Clinical Center Privacy and Disclaimer policy is available at https://www.cc.nih.gov/disclaimers.html