Harold Atkins

I am a physician of the Ottawa Hospital Transplant and Cell Therapy Program specializing in evaluation and management of patients requiring stem cell transplantation for severe autoimmune diseases, particularly Multiple Sclerosis. In addition, I am an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and a senior clinical investigator at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

Stem Cell Transplantation for The Treatment Of Autoimmune Diseases

Multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases result from the dysregulation of the immune response in individuals with permissive immunogenetics exposed to poorly identified environmental initiating factors. Thus, the removal of a diseased immune organ using systemic therapy (chemotherapy, antibody therapy and radiotherapy) and replacement with a healthy new organ derived from purified hematopoietic stem cells could be a potentially valuable and curative treatment for patients with autoimmune diseases. A variety of clinical studies at The Ottawa Hospital have shown the benefit of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, and other autoimmune diseases. Currently this clinical program is interested in:

• identifying barriers preventing access to this treatment,

• adapting HSCT to treat high-risk populations that might otherwise be excluded from this treatment,

• the long-term effectiveness of HSCT for MS and myasthenia gravis,

• Identifying potential late immunological, metabolic and neoplastic complications that might arise from HSCT for autoimmune indications.

Immunotherapy of hematologic malignancies

I have a longstanding collaboration with Drs. Natasha Kekre and John Bell and a national consortium of scientists and physicians that are implementing a Canadian made approach to improve patient access to cellular cancer immunotherapeutics, such as chimeric antigen receptor T cells. This comprehensive program addresses the pre-clinical, translational, manufacturing, regulatory and societal aspects of new and potentially expensive cancer therapies.