William F. Reed, M.D., M.H.S.

Current Positions:

• Associate Investigator, BSRI
• Clinical Associate Professor, Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
• Medical Director, UCSF Human Islet and Cellular Transplantation Laboratory

Contact Information:
270 Masonic Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94118
Phone: (415) 749-6628
Fax: (415) 775- 3859
Email: wreed@bloodsystems.org

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Download a curriculum vitae [pdf file]

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Education:

• A.B., Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University
• M.D., Brown University
• M.H.S., Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health

Training/Appointments:

• Internship and Residency in Pediatrics, Doernbecher Memorial Hospital for Children Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR (OHSU)
• Hospital-based Pediatrician, Emanuel Children's Hospital,
  Portland, OR Coordinator for Medical Student Education
• Medical Consultant, State Health Division's Newborn Screening Program (hemoglobinopathies) Director, Sickle Cell Anemia Clinic, Emanuel Children's Hospital, Portland, OR
• Fellow in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Children's Hospital Oakland

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Research Interests

• Application of blood banking principles in cellular therapeutics
• Understanding the application of molecular biology and transfusion medicine (microchimerism and genotyping)
• Understanding childhood blood diseases (sickle cell disease and thalassemia)

Current research

Cellular Therapy

Cell therapy, one of the most exciting areas of today’s biomedical research, is the collection and manipulation of human cells and tissues to produce a therapeutically useful cellular product.

Cell therapy for Diabetes, Glaucoma, Neurodegenerative Disease and Bone Marrow Transplantation: Insulin dependent diabetes and its complications are among the most important public health problems facing medicine today. Transplantation of islet cells into individuals with little or no insulin production may be a solution. In collaboration with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Dr. Reed is applying his expertise in producing sterile stem cell products. The procedures and processes Dr. Reed is formulating will assist the UCSF Diabetes Center in the production of islet cells for potentially curative transplantation.

Other collaborations with UCSF investigators include the creation and manufacturer of monocyte (produced in the bone marrow and released into the blood) populations for the treatment of severe glaucoma; the cultivation of neuronal stem cells from precursors intended to treat neurodegenerative diseases and the modification of circulating immune cells for the prevention of graft-vs.-host disease after bone marrow transplantation.

Microchimerism in Blood Recipients Following Transfusion

A chimera in Greek mythology was a fire-breathing monster composed of the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent.  The term chimera in clinical medicine is defined as an individual that may have a cell population derived from different individuals. When these chimeric cell populations are small in number within an individual it is called microchimerism (MC).

Microchimerism can be induced in an individual through stem cell transplantation when the subject is taking immunosuppressive drugs, or it can occur naturally with pregnancy (where it can contribute to the cause of autoimmune diseases).

Dr. Reed and Dr. Tzong-Hae Lee, BSRI investigator, have developed unique molecular methodologies (by means of gene amplification by PCR, a method that that permits the analysis of short sequences of DNA) for the detection and quantification of MC cell populations. These methods have been applied to the study of maternal-fetal MC in select clinical settings, and the development of a murine (mouse) transfusion model utilizing normal and immunologic knockouts, and studies looking at long-term MC that occurs in individuals who have received multiple blood products during the treatment of severe traumatic injury.

Dr. Reed’s group is now attempting to identify what may be happening in the immune system that predisposes individuals to the development of long-term MC. Future studies will look at whether microchimeric trauma patients accept donor cells within the bone marrow where blood production begins.

Understanding how MC works will have impact on the transplantation of cells and solid organs. Dr. Reed’s research will allow clinicians to fine tune how the body’s immune system responds to transplantation and may ease problems as a result of receiving a transplant such as graft-vs.-host disease.

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Publications

Reed W, Smith R, Dekovic F, et al. Comprehensive banking of sibling
donor cord blood for children with malignant and nonmalignant disease.
Blood. 101:351-357, 2003.

Locatelli F, Rocha V, Reed W, et al. Related umbilical cord blood
transplantation in patients with thalassemia and sickle cell disease.
Blood.101:2137-2143, 2003.

Reed W, Kong DZ, Lee TH, Cowan MJ, Busch MP, Baxter-Lowe LA.
Non-invasive determination of the paternal HLA haplotype of a fetus using kinetic PCR to detect fetal microchimerism in maternal plasma.
Bone Marrow Transplant. 29:527-529, 2002.

Lee TH, Paglieroni T, Utter Tzong-Hae Lee, T Paglieroni, Utter G, Chafets D, Gosselin R, Reed W, Owings J and Busch MP.High-level long-term leukocyte microchimerism following transfusion of leukoreduced blood components to patients resuscitated following severe traumatic injury (under review).

Lee TH, Wen L, Montalvo L, Esho O, Lowell C, Reed W and Busch MP.
Minimum conditions of MHC compatibility and recipient immune compromise required to establish donor leukocyte persistence in a murine transfusion model. Transfusion. 2005 (in press).

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