JEFFREY L. SPEES
Assistant Professor
Medicine
Ph.D., University of California, Davis 2001
Postdoctoral training, Tulane University Health Sciences
The Spees Lab explores the amazing ability of adult stem cells to repair tissues both ex vivo and in vivo. We are currently characterizing different sub-populations of adult non-hematopoietic stem cells and their potential to ameliorate cardiac and neural tissue injury through cellular differentiation, cell fusion, and growth factor/cytokine secretion.
With collaborators in the Center for Gene Therapy, Tulane University, we recently discovered a new mode of tissue repair: mitochondrial transfer from adult stem cells to cells with non-functional mitochondria. We are currently testing the repair of damaged cardiac myocytes by mito-transfer.
We have proposed a series of experiments to test the central hypothesis that sub-populations of adult stem cells from human bone marrow can effectively engraft and repair the injured brain by influencing the proliferation and differentiation of endogenous CNS progenitors.
Gregory CA, Reyes E, Whitney MJ, Spees JL. (2006). Enhanced engraftment of mesenchymal stem cells in a cutaneous wound model by culture in allogenic species-specific serum and administration in fibrin constructs. Stem Cells. 24(10):2232-43. 
Spees JL, Olson SD, Whitney MJ, Prockop DJ. (2006). Mitochondrial transfer between cells can rescue aerobic respiration. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.103(5):1283-8.
Munoz JR, Stoutenger BR, Robinson AP, Spees JL, Prockop DJ. (2005). Human stem/progenitor cells from bone marrow promote neurogenesis of endogenous neural stem cells in the hippocampus of mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 102(50):18171-6.
Gregory CA, Prockop DJ, Spees JL. (2005). Non-hematopoietic bone marrow stem cells: molecular control of expansion and differentiation. Exp Cell Res. 306(2):330-5.
Spees JL, Olson SD, Ylostalo J, Lynch PJ, Smith J, Perry A, Peister A, Wang MY, Prockop DJ. (2003). Differentiation, cell fusion, and nuclear fusion during ex vivo repair of epithelium by human adult stem cells from bone marrow stroma. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 100(5):2397-402.
