Improving Cord Blood Transplantation

James (Jim) Ropa, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of medical and molecular genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine. He received his BS in biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame and earned his concurrent MS in bioinformatics and PhD in molecular and cellular pathology from the University of Michigan. He did his postdoctoral studies in experimental hematology under the mentorship of Drs. Hal Broxmeyer and Mark Kaplan at the Indiana University School of Medicine, where he joined the faculty in 2024.

Ropa’s research is focused on improving outcomes for patients with blood and immune disorders using basic and translational science approaches. The Ropa lab studies intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect hematopoietic cell functional potency and how these processes can be targeted for improved treatment of hematologic disease.

Ropa is the 2025 AABB Foundation Cord Blood Research Grant recipient. His project, "Omics Identification of Potency Associated Genes in Umbilical Cord Blood: Predictive Tools and Expansion Targets,” aims to improve cord blood unit selection for cell therapies by using transcriptomic assessment of donor units with known or predicted transplantation efficacy.