Markus Mapara

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT MARKUS MAPARA

Dr. Mapara is Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplantation & Cell Therapy (BMT) Program at Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Mapara treats patients undergoing autologous and allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation with a particular focus on Plasma Cell Dyscrasias, Lymphomas, and Sickle Cell Anemia. As a physician-scientist Dr. Mapara directs a research laboratory and is a principal investigator at the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology. His research is focused on fundamental and translational aspects of bone marrow transplantation and cellular therapy with a particular focus on preventing GVHD and inducing tolerance. Dr. Mapara was recruited in 2012 to establish a Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program. Since his arrival, he led and oversaw the successful establishment a rapidly growing clinical BMT program, which included construction of a new state-of-art 18-bed BMT unit, recruitment of academic and clinical faculty, physician extenders and nursing staff. The program achieved FACT and NMDP accreditation and has a GMP facility for the implementation of immune effector cell therapy. Under the leadership of Dr. Mapara, the BMT program expanded its portfolio to offer antigen-specific and CAR T cell therapies. Dr. Mapara graduated from the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and received his post-graduate training in Internal Medicine and Hematology/Oncology at the University of Heidelberg and the University Medical Center Charitè (Humboldt University, Berlin/Germany). In addition, he completed a research fellowship at the Transplantation Biology Research Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital at the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Before coming to Columbia, Dr. Mapara served as the Director of the Adult HSCT Program at the University of Pittsburgh, the biggest NMDP and FACT-accredited program in Western Pennsylvania with 120-140 transplants per year. Dr. Mapara is also a FACT inspector.