Health Humanities Grand Rounds Presents Mike Winstead

October 6, 2021 at 3:30pm

“The Transplanted Self: Genetics, Race, and Pragmatism in Stem Cell Transplantation”

Register at go.unc.edu/HHGRWinstead

Description: Medicine describes the immune system’s distinction between normal and diseased cells as an immunological “self.” Receiving a stem cell or bone marrow transplant combines the immunological “selves” of donor and recipient, which can lead to life-threatening complications. Safely navigating this process involves genetic matching of the donor and recipient immune systems, a process that roughly tracks with the social construct of race. Stem cell transplants (and their complications) occur at a nexus of genetics, ancestry, race, and “selfhood” that medicine has not explored, due to a pragmatic focus on tangible problems and concrete solutions.

Speaker: Mike Winstead MD is an assistant professor of pediatrics specializing in pediatric hematology-oncology and bone marrow transplantation.  He is interested in the immune system as an intellectual development of the mid-20th century and in the social interactions of immunity, health, and illness.