Impact of COVID-19 and Future Emerging Viruses on Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and Other Cellular Therapies

Abstract

COVID-19, where Co stands for corona, VI stands for virus, and D denotes disease, in the recent past referred to as 2019 novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV, has impacted numerous lives and businesses, and has led to a surreal emergency state within world communities. COVID-19 and the future emergence of dangerous viruses will have strong and as yet possibly unanticipated consequences and impact on the present and future use of cellular therapies. In this commentary, we offer a dispassionate assessment of where we believe COVID-19, as well as future emerging viruses, might compromise successful cell transplantation (Fig. 1). These therapies include hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) using umbilical cord blood (CB), bone marrow (BM), and mobilized peripheral blood, which contain hematopoietic stem (HSC) and progenitor (HPC) cells, as well as various cellular populations involved in the emerging fields of reparative and regenerative medicine. Such cell populations include HSC, HPC, mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC), and immune cells such as lymphocytes used in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, as well as pluripotent stem cell–based therapies.