Jeffrey L. Spees, PhD

Education:

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Residency

Fellowship

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Biography:

Dr. Spees is a member of our research faculty.  He seeks to repair injured tissue with the use of stem cells.  Dr. Spees has presented results of his research on adult stem cells both nationally and internationally, including invited lectures for The Croucher Foundation Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Stem Cell Research, The University of Hong Kong, China and the Second International Symposium for Life Sciences (Regenerative Medicine), Showa University, Tokyo, Japan.  He has been a guest speaker on the cNBC TV show “Bull’s Eye” to discuss the potential of adult stem cells to repair infarcted myocardium.

Major Research Interests:

Dr. Spees is elucidating the differentiation capacity, migration patterns, cytokine/growth factor secretion, and fusion of adult stem cells with tissue endogenous cells to determine their ability to repair tissues. He works with experimental animal preparations to characterize progressive pulmonary hypertension, myocardial infarction, and fibrosis and their responses to adult stem cells. Currently, he is investigating mechanisms through which adult stem cells can preserve mitochondrial function in injured cardiomyocytes.  

Dr. Spees directs a new Adult Stem Cell Core in the Cardiovascular Research Institute. The Core provides unmanipulated as well as lentivirally- tagged adult stem cells from human and rodent sources to other investigators within the University of Vermont College of Medicine. It is anticipated that the Adult Stem Cell Core will act as a catalyst for collaborative discoveries in regenerative medicine and will lead to novel cell-based therapeutic strategies for cardiac and other diseases. 

Grant title:         Differentiation Potential of Adult Rat Stem Cells
Sponsor:           NIH/NHLBI R21 HL077570-01
PI:                    Spees, JL

Grant title:         Adult Bone Marrow Stem Cells for CNS Repair
Sponsor:           NIH/NCRR 5 P20 RR016435-06 (Parsons, R: PI of COBRE)
PI:                    Spees, JL (project 4)

Publications:

Representative Publications from a total of 11

Spees, J.L., Olson, S.D., Ylostalo, J., Lynch, P.J., Smith, J., Perry, A., Peister, A., Wang, M.Y., Prockop, D.J. Differentiation, cell fusion and nuclear fusion during ex vivo repair of epithelium by human adult stem cells from bone marrow stroma (hMSCs). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100:2397-2402, 2003.

Prockop, D.J., Gregory, C.A., Spees, J.L. One strategy for cell and gene therapy: Harnessing the power of adult stem cells to repair tissues. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100 (suppl. 1):11917-11923, 2003.

Wang, G., Bunnell, B.A., Painter, R.G., Tom, S., Lanson, N.A., Spees, J.L., Bertucci, D., Weiss, D.J., Valentine, V.G., Prockop, D.J., Kolls, J.K. Adult stem cells from bone marrow stroma differentiate into airway epithelial cells: potential for cystic fibrosis therapy. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102:186-191, 2004.

Gregory, C.A., Gunn, W.G., Reyes, E., Smolarz, A.J., Munoz, J., Spees, J.L., Prockop, D.J. How Wnt signaling affects bone repair by mesenchymal stem cells from the bone marrow. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1049:1-10, 2005.

Gregory, C.A., Prockop, D.J., Spees J.L. Non-hematopoietic bone marrow stem cells: Molecular control of expansion and differentiation. Experimental Cell Res. 306:330-335, 2005.

Munoz, J.R., Stoutenger, B.R., Robinson, A.P., Spees, J.L., D.J. Prockop. Human stem/progenitor cells from bone marrow (MSCs) promote neurogenesis of endogenous neural stem cells in the hippocampus of mice. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102:18171-18176, 2005.

Spees, J.L., Olson, S.D., Whitney, M.J., D.J. Prockop. Mitochondria transfer between cells can rescue aerobic respiration. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103:1283-1288, 2006.

Iso, Y, Spees, J.L., Bakondi, B., Serrano, C., Pochampally, R., Song, Y-H, Sobel, B.E., Delafontaine, P., Prockop D.J.  Multipotent human stromal cells improve cardiac function after myocardial infarction in immunodeficient mice without long-term engraftment. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Com., in press.