Sandhya Kharbanda, MD

Dr. Sandhya Kharbanda is a specialist in pediatric blood disorders and stem cell transplantation, and the medical director of the pediatric blood and marrow transplant program at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco.

Having a special interest in stem cell transplantation for children with inherited metabolic disorders, Kharbanda aims to provide state-of-the-art care while improving both short- and long-term outcomes for these patients. She works with a multidisciplinary team to care for children who need a stem cell transplant due to leukodystrophies (genetic disorders affecting white tissues of the central nervous system), mucopolysaccharidoses, and other lysosomal storage disorders (genetic diseases in which a protein deficiency leads to toxic chemicals accumulating in cells). She is also interested in in inherited disorders of red blood cells, including thalassemia and sickle cell disease, and leads UCSF studies that evaluate new therapies for these conditions.

Kharbanda earned her medical degree from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College, Jabalpur, in India. She completed a residency in pediatrics at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, part of the State University of New York system. She completed a fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, followed by a fellowship in pediatric bone marrow transplantation at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Prior to joining UCSF in 2017, she worked at Stanford University School of Medicine and University of Alabama at Birmingham.