Dr. Elena Nedelcu brings two decades of experience in clinical pathology, transfusion medicine, hematology diagnostics and cellular therapies. Her main interests are medical and post-graduate education, patient safety and quality in transfusion service, and cellular therapies.

She earned her medical degree at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania and completed post-doctoral research in ex vivo expansion of cord blood cells and in utero transplantation of ontogenically diverse stem cells at a biotechnology company and University of California, San Diego. Dr. Nedelcu is board certified in Clinical Pathology, Hematology-Pathology and Transfusion Medicine and serves in AABB Global Transfusion Forum, Education Committee, The Blood Project Advisory Board, and the quality working group of the International Society for Blood Transfusion. She completed Clinical Pathology training at Harbor-University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Hematopathology and Cellular Therapy fellowships at UC Davis, and Transfusion Medicine fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

At UCSF, she is the medical director of the UCSF Berkeley Cancer Center Laboratory, co-director and assistant medical director of the Transfusion Services at Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and UCSF Medical Center, respectively. Dr. Nedelcu is the program director of the Herbert Perkins Cellular Therapy and Transfusion Medicine fellowship, and co-director of the Transfusion Medicine Elective and the Cellular Therapy Elective for the 4th year UCSF medical students.

Prior to coming to UCSF, she was Assistant Professor in Hematology-Pathology, Transfusion Medicine and Clinical Immunology at University of Texas McGovern Medical School at Houston where she also served as the Quality Chief Officer for the Clinical Pathology division and was part of the team who established the Hemotherapy clinical service.

She is passionate about bringing forth education about blood as a diagnostic and therapy tool to underserved and minority students and is part of UCSF Program for Investigation and Training for Careers in Healthcare (PITCH) and Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) Summer Student Research Program (SSRP).