**About the Editor**

#### **Rupert Handgretinger**

Rupert Handgretinger, M.D., is Emeritus Professor at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. From 2000 to 2005, he was the director of the division of stem cell transplantation at the St.Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. From 2005 to 2021, he was the department chair of Hematology/Oncology at the Children's University Hospital in Tuebingen, Germany, from where he retired in 2021. He is currently working as a consultant at the Yas Clinic Khalifa City and Abu Dhabi Stem Cell Center in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Prof. Handgretinger was one of the first to introduce CD34+ positive selection in haploidentical transplantation and, together with other researchers, developed methods for the ex vivo negative depletion of T-cells from mobilized peripheral blood from matched unrelated and haploidentical donors. The more recently developed depletion of αβ+ T-lymphocytes is now widely used in pediatric haploidentical transplantation. His other research interests have been the development of novel approaches of humoral and cellular immunotherapies for various forms of cancer. He was the first in 2008 to use the bispecific T-cell Engager (BiTE) Blinatumomab in children with refractory pre-B leukemia and was the first in 1989 to use the murine anti-GD2 antibody 14.G2a in children with refractory neuroblastoma. More recently. Prof. Handgretinger's team is focusing on the generation of new chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) constructs, and one of them is the development of an unique adapter CAR approach directed against hematological and solid tumors. Prof. Handgretinger has authored and co-authored >500 papers in peer-reviewed journals and contributed to various textbooks dealing with stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy. He is a member of the German academy of science Leopoldina and associate editor of the journal *Bone Marrow Transplantation*. In 2021, he was awarded the Life Time Achievement Award from the Pediatric Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Consortium (PTCTC).
