Dr Barbara Withers

Dr Barbara Withers is a clinical and laboratory haematologist with special interests in haematological cancers, haemopoietic stem cell transplantation, and adoptive T-cell therapy.

Dr Withers completed her undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Pharmacology at the University of Queensland and then graduated from Medicine at the University of Sydney in 2003. She completed her haematology training at St Vincent’s hospital, and then moved to Royal North Shore hospital to complete a bone marrow transplantation fellowship. On completion, she moved to Westmead Institute of Medical Research to complete her PhD studies having been awarded a 3 year Leukaemia Foundation Clinical Scholarship. During her PhD studies she ran a successful national trial investigating the use of CMV-specific T-cells to treatment bone marrow transplant patients with resistant CMV infection, and presented the results at numerous international conferences. Her publication detailing the creation of the virus-specific T-cell bank used in the trial, won the George Santos award from the American BMT Society for the best clinical science article by a new investigator in 2018. She returned to St Vincent’s Hospital in 2018 to take up a clinical role focusing on stem cell transplantation, and has been closely involved in the translational research trials using autologous stem cell transplants to treat patients with Multiple sclerosis, and virus specific T-cells to treat post-transplant infections. She participates in regular multidisciplinary team meetings for haematological malignancy, stem cell transplant and cellular therapies, autoimmune transplant and bone marrow pathology. She is a conjoint Senior Lecturer with the University of NSW.