Cassandra D. Josephson, MD

Dr. Josephson is the director of the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is also a professor in Oncology and Pediatrics in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She joined the medical staff in 2022.

She was installed as the Hawkins Family Endowed Chair in the Cancer and Blood Disorders Institute in 2024.

Dr. Josephson, who specializes in blood banking/transfusion medicine and hematology-oncology, is recognized internationally as a leader in pediatric transfusion medicine and has made significant contributions to medical education, clinical knowledge, clinical/translational research and patient care. Most recently, she worked as a Professor of Pathology/Laboratory Medicine and Pediatrics and was the director of Clinical Research and associate director of the Emory Center for Transfusion and Cellular Therapies at the Emory University School of Medicine and at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

She has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and received multiple NIH-funded and Centers for Disease Control grant awards. Her research is focused on transfusion medicine issues related to pediatric hematology and hemostasis, with a focus on sickle cell disease, neonatology, coagulation in pediatric trauma, and platelet transfusion in various disease states.

In 2019, the NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) honored Dr. Josephson’s work as one of its Celebrated Women Scientists. They highlighted some of her important research findings, including that anemia — and not transfusions — is associated with increased risk for necrotizing enterocolitis in neonatal intensive care patients, and her work to decrease complications from red blood cell and platelet transfusions by elucidating how these complications arise in infants and children.

Dr. Josephson earned her medical degree from the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. She completed a pediatric residency at the University of Colorado and Children’s Hospital Colorado, followed by clinical fellowships in pediatric hematology/oncology and blood bank/transfusion medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. 

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