Dr. Sergio A. Giralt

Dr. Sergio A. Giralt, MD, is a board-certified hematologist-oncologist with deep expertise in stem cell transplantation for patients with blood disorders. He trained and worked for many years at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he served as Deputy Chair of the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies. In May 2010, he joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to lead the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Service, serving as Chief until February 2020. His career has been defined by a commitment to expanding access to life-saving transplant therapies, particularly for older and more medically vulnerable patients.

Dr. Giralt is widely recognized for pioneering the use of reduced-intensity conditioning regimens, a landmark advance that opened the door to stem cell transplantation for older or more debilitated patients with leukemia and other blood cancers. Before this development, high-dose chemotherapy's toxic effects made transplantation using donor cells an impractical option for this population. His work changed the standard of care worldwide and continues to evolve at Memorial Sloan Kettering through the integration of T cell depletion techniques that dramatically reduce the risk of graft-versus-host disease. He also champions post-transplant maintenance therapies using targeted agents to address disease recurrence, a persistent challenge following transplantation. In multiple myeloma, his research has focused on developing improved conditioning regimens for autologous transplant and reducing symptom burden to make treatment feasible on an outpatient basis. He led the Myeloma Intergroup Committee of the Blood and Marrow Clinical Trials Network, shaping the national study on consolidation therapy after autologous stem cell transplant for myeloma patients.

A strong advocate for collaborative science, Dr. Giralt has been involved in numerous multi-institutional research efforts throughout his career. He served as chair of the executive board of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research and as past chair of the steering committee of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network, the federally funded group responsible for defining the national research agenda in stem cell transplantation. Through these leadership roles, he has helped shape the direction of transplant medicine and expanded access to cutting-edge therapies for patients across the United States and beyond.