What I Do - Jennifer Wilder
For 17 years, my specialty at NIH was finding donors for people who needed a bone marrow transplant for cell and gene therapies. I evaluated genetics of the match between the donor and the patient, looking at the registry of 40 million donors.
The part of our immune system that we match is called HLA, human leukocyte antigen. Out of our entire human genome—you, me, Martha Stewart, Snoop Dogg, everybody in the whole world—more than 99 percent of our genes are completely identical. For that remaining 1 percent or less that are different, the most diverse genes are found in what’s known as the major histocompatibility complex. It’s a group of genes that codes for your immune system’s recognition of self vs. non-self. I find it reassuring to know that we can find common ground even in the most unique part of our genes—no matter how different we are as individuals.
My donor searches had a tangible deliverable: cells showing up and people getting their transplants. I now have a new role that is a little harder to understand. I work with Dr. Sung Yun Pai, MD of the National Cancer Institute and Theresa Jerussi, PA-C of the NIH Clinical Center to lead the cross-institute Transplant and Cell Therapy (TCT) Program. Our NIH partners include the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
I’m based at the NIH Clinical Center, and I still oversee the donor program. But now my broader goal is to find the commonalities across our transplant teams and build them into standards and processes so that we function a little more cohesively. One example was getting all three institutes to agree to merge our data registry protocols and centers into one. It took us a year, but we are all in one center now. It allows us to see our activity and outcomes across the whole program. We’ll use this to reflect data back to our stakeholders so we know where we can improve.
The TCT Program cares for the most vulnerable people in the world. They’re the most resilient humans I’ve ever met. I love the fact that we get to take care of people who nobody else can take care of. I’m not here to do easy things. If it was easy, it would already be done.
Jennifer Wilder, DNP, APRN, ACCNS-AG, CNE, OCN, began her nursing career working with cancer patients. She later earned a doctorate of nursing practice from Johns Hopkins University. Interview and photo by Sean Markey.