A team of medical experts plans to grow the GW Cancer Center.

The research center will expand its Bone Marrow Transplant and Cell Therapies program to include the conversion of research initiatives into “novel” therapy practices, the center announced in a release Thursday.

John Barrett, who previously served as the chief of the stem cell transplantation section of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, will lead the expanded program. He will also be appointed as a professor of medicine in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the release states.

Barrett will join several other medical professionals – including the director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research at the Children’s Research Institute and the former associate technical director of stem cell transplantation at the MD Anderson Cancer Center – to oversee the program’s expansion.

“I look forward to this exceptional team working together with the existing clinical and translational experts at the GW Cancer Center to bring innovative and cutting-edge cell-based therapies from the bench to the bedside for cancer patients in our community,” Kimberly Russo, the CEO and managing director of GW Hospital, said in the release.

The cancer center, first announced in 2013, opened about a year and a half ago with the goal of conducting key research that officials said could impact both local and national cancer care practices.