Leadership

Caitlin Costello, MD

Clinical Professor of Medicine
Interim Division Chief and Clinical Director of the Division of Hematology and Cellular Therapy

Caitlin Costello, MD, is a board-certified hematologist and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego and specializes in the treatment of hematologic malignancies. As a physician in UC San Diego Health's Division of Hematology and Cellular Therapy, Dr. Costello provides comprehensive blood and cellular therapy services, including autologous transplantation for all hematologic malignancies, with a focus plasma cell dyscrasias, specifically multiple myeloma, AL amyloidosis, and Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia. In addition, Dr. Costello’s clinical expertise and research interests include operational efficiency, clinical innovation, and quality improvement.

As the leader of the Multiple Myeloma Program at UC San Diego, Dr. Costello has an active, broad research portfolio that includes clinical trials of novel therapies in myeloma and related disorders. She has a special focus on research with immunotherapies such as CAR-T cell therapy and bispecific antibodies which have been published and presented at national and international meetings. Dr. Costello has co-authored numerous articles and her work has appeared in medical and research publications, including Blood Journal, Lancet Hematology, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. Dr. Costello is a member of the International Myeloma Working Group and International Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia Foundation, and serves as a member of the American Society of Hematology Education Committee.

Dr. Costello serves as the Interim Division Chief and Clinical Director of the Division of Hematology and Cellular Therapy, overseeing clinical operations of the program, both inpatient at the Jacobs Medical Center and outpatient at the Moores Cancer Center.

Dr. Costello completed a fellowship in hematology-oncology with a focus in bone marrow transplantation at UC San Diego School of Medicine. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Costello earned her medical degree at Tufts University School of Medicine and undergraduate degree from Harvard University.  She joined UC San Diego as a faculty member in 2012.

Dr. Costello is fluent in Spanish.

Tiffany Tanaka, MD

Dr. Tiffany Tanaka is a board-certified hematologist and medical oncologist in the Division of Hematology & Cellular Therapy and serves as the Quality Director and Leukemia Section Chief. Within her leadership roles, Dr. Tanaka has helped develop and implement standard operating procedures aligned with regulatory and accreditation standards such as those from the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy and the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research. As Leukemia Section Chief, her goal is to foster multidisciplinary collaboration to provide patients with access to stem cell transplant, immune effector cellular (CAR-T) therapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy. She enjoys mentoring junior faculty and trainees and has played an active role in recruiting faculty to the rapidly growing Division of HCT.

Dr. Tanaka completed undergraduate studies at Stanford University, medical school at the University of Hawai’i (her home state) and joined UC San Diego in 2010, where she completed Internal Medicine Residency, Hematology/Oncology fellowship and joined the faculty in 2016. During fellowship, she was inspired by the rapid pace of scientific discovery in Hematology and focused on translational genomics research. Outside of work, she enjoys exercising, baking, traveling with her family and doing arts & crafts projects with her daughter.