Marcelo Cypel

Administrative Assistant: Sarah Wilson, 416-634-7241, sarah.wilson@uhnresearch.ca

Research Synopsis

Dr. Cypel's research interests include lung perfusion and transplantation, gene and cell therapy to repair injured organs, and lung cancer. He has developed a successful strategy for ex vivo normothermic preservation of donor lungs (EVLP) enabling the expansion of the donor lung pool worldwide. An innovation led by Dr. Cypel is the use of light-based therapies to inactivate Hepatitis C Virus from donor organs.

Dr. Cypel had a major role in implementing a DCD (donation after cardiac death) clinical protocol in Canada and standardized operating procedures in his lab which enabled the group to test different strategies that minimize ischemic time injury. Other current and future research lines include: 1) to study a lung-protective compound that prevents vascular leak during EVLP to improve post-transplantation graft function; 2) to investigate novel oxygen carriers for lung preservation in the transplant scenario; 3) to test a novel bioengineered nanofilm on the luminal surface of blood vessels of the lungs in order to prevent or delay graft rejection; 4) to explore the effects of fusion toxin proteins and monoclonal antibodies that specifically target and inactivate viral infections during EVLP; 5) to treat donor lungs during EVLP with enzymes (glycosidases) that remove blood type A/B antigen therefore lungs will become suitable for ABO incompatible transplant.