Cell and Gene Therapy Team

The Center for Cell and Gene Therapy for Non-malignant Conditions is comprised of several treatment teams, with specialists in immunology, hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplant.

Deepak Chellapandian, M.D.

Director

Jennifer Leiding, M.D.

Assistant Director

Jennifer Leiding MD

Michelle Cooper, R.N.

Coordinator

Michelle

Treatment Teams

Deepakbabu Chellapandian, M.D.

Treatment Teams: Hemoglobinopathies, Non-SCID primary immunodeficiencies, Immune dysregulation disorders, Bone marrow failure disorders

Dr. Chellapandian is the division chief of blood and marrow transplant and specializes in bone marrow transplant as a hematologist-oncologist and serves as director of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy for Non-Malignant Conditions (CCGNC) in the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute. He joined the hospital staff in 2017. Dr. Chellapandian earned his medical degree from Madurai Medical College and then trained at Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, both in India. He completed a residency in pediatrics at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Chellapandian completed a pediatric hematology-oncology and bone marrow transplantation fellowship at Hospital for Sick Children/University of Toronto in Canada and an advanced fellowship on bone marrow transplantation and cellular therapy at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

View Deepakbabu Chellapandian’s Bio

Jennifer Leiding, M.D.

Treatment Team: Severe combined immunodeficiency, Non-SCID primary immunodeficiencies, Immune dysregulation disorders

Jennifer Leiding, M.D., is associate director for clinical research in the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and assistant director of the Center for Cellular and Gene Therapy in the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute. She is also an associate professor of pediatrics (pending academic review) based on the St. Petersburg, Florida, campus in the Johns Hopkins University of School of Medicine. Dr. Leiding, whose clinical specialty is allergy and immunology, focuses on strategic growth of, and mentorship in, clinical research and early-phase trials campuswide, as well as cellular and gene therapies for cancer and blood disorders. Her personal line of research and national leadership focuses on cooperative multicenter studies of primary immunodeficiency diseases, including chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) and other rare diseases in children. She returned to Johns Hopkins All Children’s in 2024 after previously serving on the faculty at the USF Morsani College of Medicine and the medical staff of All Children’s for nearly a decade. In between, she worked as a medical director at a gene therapy-focused biotech company. Dr. Leiding earned her medical degree from USF before training there as an intern and resident in pediatrics. She completed her clinical and research fellowship in both allergy and immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Jennifer Leiding MD