Rona Weinberg, PhD

Cellular Therapy

Comprehensive Cell Solutions (CCS) is a contract manufacturing and development organization (CDMO). CCS has more than twenty years of experience providing state-of-the-art cGTP and cGMP laboratory services to hospital and academic programs and biopharmaceutical clients. The Laboratory has processed and cryopreserved more than 18,000 hematopoietic progenitor cell products, representing more than 6,000 successful bone marrow transplants. CCS has experience providing minimally manipulated products and more than minimally manipulated procedures such as complex cellular enrichment and depletion procedures and manufacture of genetically modified and non-genetically modified immunomodulatory products to support phase 1/2 clinical trials. Parathyroid tissue is cryopreserved for future implantation. The lab maintains New York State licensure, FDA registration, and FACT accreditation.

Myeloproliferative Neoplasms 

The Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN) Research Laboratory is a member of the MPN Research Consortium which is comprised of an international team of scientists and clinicians working together to investigate the etiology of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) and to develop translational therapies for their treatment.

MPNs are chronic hematologic malignancies that develop from abnormal hematopoietic stem cells. MPNs include polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF). Each disorder involves excessive production of cells belonging predominantly to a different blood cell lineage. For example, PV patients have too many red blood cells; ET patients have too many platelets; and PMF patients have excessive fibrous tissue in the bone marrow preventing normal hematopoiesis. Translational research designed to develop treatment and cure is dependent on the availability of tissues from a sufficient number of accurately diagnosed patients to generate statistically significant data. However, because MPNs are relatively uncommon and significant clinical overlap makes accurate diagnosis difficult, there has been a paucity of tissue, linked to clinical data, available to investigators.

The MPN Research Laboratory fills this void by maintaining one of the world’s largest banks of cryopreserved tissues donated by MPN patients with an inventory of specimens from more than 1500 patients. Importantly, while all patient samples are de-identified, they are electronically linked to clinical and demographic data to ensure accurate diagnosis and interpretation of data. The Tissue Bank has distributed tissues from more than 1000 patients to Consortium members and the scientific community at large. The MPN Laboratory is an essential shared resource that enables translational research that will result in improved diagnosis and staging of MPNs and will ultimately lead to the development of molecularly targeted therapies.