Don Siegel, Ph.D., M.D. is Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and founding director
of that department’s Division of Transfusion Medicine & Therapeutic Pathology at the University
of Pennsylvania. He is medical director of the blood bank, apheresis unit, and hematopoietic
stem cell lab, and runs a NIH T32-supported ACGME-accredited transfusion medicine
fellowship program. He directs the Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility in Penn’s Center
for Advanced Cellular Therapies which has manufactured >3000 cell products for >1200
patients including the first genetically modified cell therapy product approved by the FDA
(tisagenlecleucel) and first-in-human use of CRISPR-edited cells.
Dr. Siegel’s translational research laboratory has been funded by the NIH in the areas of
immunohematology, hemostasis/thrombosis, autoimmunity, and oncology since 1992. His
laboratory focuses on the development of phage display technologies for the discovery of
recombinant human and non-human antibodies relevant to transfusion medicine, benign
hematology, infectious diseases, and oncology, particularly for use in the design of targeted
therapies such as chimeric antigen receptor T-cells.
Since 2017, Dr. Siegel has been recognized with receipt of the Research Innovation in Scientific
Excellence Award, the Dale E. Smith Memorial Award, the Tibor Greenwalt Memorial Award
and Lectureship from the AABB; the Francis S. Morrison Award and the Lecturer Award from
the American Society of Apheresis; and the Gift of Life Award from the Ree Wynn Foundation.
For his contributions specifically to the development of chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy,
Dr. Siegel shared the 2020 Robert de Villiers Spiral of Life Award from the Leukemia &
Lymphoma Society and the 2020 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Team Science Award
with a number of Penn colleagues within the Center for Cellular Immunotherapy. In 2022, Dr.
Siegel was elected to the AABB National Blood Foundation Hall of Fame.
Dr. Siegel received an undergraduate degree in Biophysics from Brown University, a Ph.D. in
Biophysics from Harvard University, and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He
completed a residency in Clinical Pathology and Fellowship in Transfusion Medicine at the
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania before joining Penn as a member of the faculty in
1992.
