Vincent F La Russa, PhD

Education:

Graduate School:
PhD
State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY)
Physiology
Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI)
(RPMI), Buffalo, NY

Fellowship:
Special Fellow Award in Oncology
The Johns Hopkins Oncology Center
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD

National Research Council (NRC) Fellow Award in Immunology
Naval Medical Command Center (NMCC)
Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI)
Bethesda, Maryland

Curriculum Vitae

Current Positions:

Research Associate Professor of Medicine
Department of Cardiology
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY

Director, Center for Advanced Cellular Therapies
Department of Cardiology
Cardiovascular Innovations Institute (CII)
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY

Scientific Director, Stem Cell Processing Laboratory
Blood and Marrow Transplant Program
Brown Cancer Center
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY

Contact Information:

Email: vflaru01@louisville.edu
Office: 502-854-0562502-854-0562

Research Description:

Hematology – Oncology Clinical Laboratory Service

Dr La Russa is Associate Professor of Medicine at the Institute of Molecular Cardiology, University of Louisville School of Medicine.  Dr La Russa received his PhD degree in Physiology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Division of Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo New York.  He Received the Special Fellow Award and completed his fellowship in Oncology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  He also received the fellowshiop Award from the National Research Council (NRC) in Immunology, and completed his fellowship at the Naval Medical Command Center, Naval Medical Research Institute.

Dr La Russa is a member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), The International Society for Cellular Therapies (ISCT), the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplant (ASBMT), and the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society (RAPS).

Dr La Russa is currently serving as director of the Stem Cell Processing Laboratory for the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program.  The cell therapy facility is located on the 2nd floor of the Brown Cancer Center.  Dr La Russa’s responsibilities are to assure the cell processing facility is FDA compliant by adhering to current good tissue practices, cGTPs, and good manufacturing practices, cGMPs, and according to the highest cell therapy standards set by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapies, or FACT.  Current Cell therapy products processed by the laboratory include autologous, and allogeneic stem cells from bone marrow, peripheral blood hematopoietic progenitor cells, and cord blood products from the National Marrow Donor Program.

Literature Cited:

  1. Alan Miller, Ph.D., M.D.; Pam Khosla, M.D.; James Lynch, M.D.; Jan Moreb, M.D.;Suzette Cullins, M.D.; Hana Safah, M.D.; Charles Hutchison; Vincent LaRussa,Ph.D.; Kate Vellis, P.A.C.; Janet Rice, Ph.D.; Nancy Mendenhall, M.D.; Roy Weiner,M.D. Durable Remission of Locally Advanced Breast Cancer with Multimodality Management Medical Oncology 15: 89-95, 1998.
  2. Reid T J, La Russa VF, Esteban G, Clear M, Davies L, Shea S, Garogias M. Cooling and Freezing Damage Platelet Membrane. Cryobiology, (10 cryo.1999.2164): 38: 209-224, 1999.
  3. Miller A, Morrison 0, Safah, H, Cullins S, La Russa VF, Rink J, Weiner R. Decreased Quality of Peripheral Blood Progenitors Collected after Peripheral Blood Progenitor Transplant. J Hematother 9: 475 - 486, 2000.
  4. Schwarzenberger P, La Russa VF, Miller A, Ye P, Huang W, Zieske A, Nelson S, Bagby GJ, Stoltz 0, Mynatt RL, Spriggs M, Kolls JK. IL-17 Stimulates Hematopoiesis in Mice: Use of an Alternate, Novel Gene Therapy-Derived Method for In Vivo Evaluation of Cytokines. J Immunol 161: 6383 - 6395, 1998.
  5. Sun B, Jiang G, Zaydan MA, La Russa VF, Safah H, Ehrlich M : ABL 1 promoter methylation can be uncoupled from BCR-ABL transcription in chronic myeloid leukemia hematopoietic progenitors. Cancer Research 61: 6931-693, 2001.
  6. Schwarzenberger P, Huang W, Oliver P, Byrne P, La Russa VF, Zhang Z, Kolls JK : Interleukin 17 Mobilizes peripheral blood stem cells with short and long term repopulating ability in mice. J Immunol167: 2081-2086, 2001.
  7. Zhong Q, Oliver P, Haung W, Good 0, La Russa VF, Zhang Z, Cork dR, Veith RW,Theodosious C, Kolis JK, Schwarzenberger P : Efficient c-kit Receptor Targeted Gene Transfer to Primary, Human CD34 Selected Hematopoietic Stem Cells. J Virol 75:10393-10400, 2001.
  8. Jiang G, Yang F, Li M, Weissbecker K, Price S, Kim KC, La Russa VF, Safah H,Ehrlich M: Imatinib STI571 provides only limited selectivity for CML cells and treatment might be complicated by silent BCRABL genes.  Cancer Biology and Therapy 2:1661 -1667,2003.
  9. Srinivasan R,Marrero L, Erfurth F, La Russa VF, Hemenway CS. The synthetic peptide PFWT AF4-AF9 protein complexes and induces apoptosis in t(4; 11) Leukemia Cells. Leukemia 8: 1364 - 1372, 2004.
  10. Zou L, Barnett B, Safah H, La Russa VF, Evdemon-Hogan M, Mottram P, Wei S, David 0, Curiel T J, Zou W. : Bone marrow is a reservoir for CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells that traffic through CXCL 12/CXCR4 signals.  Cancer Research 64: 8451-8455, 2004.
  11. Barker IN, Abboud M, Rice RD, Hawke R, Schaible A, Heller G, La Russa VF, Scaradavou A. A "no-wash" albumin-dextran dilution strategy for cord blood unit thaw: high rate of engraftment and a low incidence of serious infusion reactions. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant 12: 1596-602, 2009.

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