Dr. Dan Kaufman is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation and Associate Director the Stem Cell Institute. He serves as co-Director of the Integrated Center of Cellular Therapy and Regenerative Medicine at the International Clinical Research Center, St. Anne’s Hospital. Brno, Czech Republic. Research in the Kaufman lab uses human pluripotent stem cells to understand the development of blood cells and related mesodermal cell populations. Specific projects investigate development of distinct cell populations from hESCs and iPSCs, including: hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells, lymphocytes, endothelial cells, cardio-vascular progenitor cells, and osteogenic (bone forming) cells. Recent studies have demonstrated the ability to use hESC and iPSC-derived natural killer (NK) cells to kill diverse types of human cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. Other studies demonstrate these hESC and iPSC-derived NK cells can preferentially kill HIV-infected cells. We now aim to advance this work to use human pluripotent stem cells as a resource for new clinical applications against a variety of lethal diseases.