Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD

Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD, is Chief of the Cellular Therapy and Transplant Section, Director of the Susan and Steven Kelly Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, and Medical Director of the Cell and Gene Therapy Lab at CHOP. He is also the Novotny Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. He has authored over 275 articles and book chapters during his research career across the translational spectrum. He leads the largest pediatric cell therapy program in the country, a group that recently celebrated treating its 700th CAR T patient. Dr. Grupp came to CHOP in 1996 after receiving his MD/PhD in Cincinnati and completing his clinical training in Boston. His primary area of research is the use of CAR T and other engineered cell therapies in pediatric cancers and other life-threatening disorders such as sickle cell disease. His lab focuses on CAR T cell therapy and manufacturing. He led all of the pediatric ALL trials of the CAR T product CTL019 (tisa-cel), including Novartis’ international registration trial, leading to the first FDA approval of a CAR T product (tradename Kymriah). As a result of this work, he presented the Clinical Perspective at the first FDA ODAC CAR T meeting. He is currently the Study Steering Committee Lead for the Vertex international registration trials of their CRISPR-edited product for sickle cell disease (exa-cel). Exa-cel (Casgevy) was approved by the FDA in December 2023, the first CRISPR-edited product ever approved. Dr. Grupp became a Fellow of the AACR Academy in 2025 and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.