Who We Fund

University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Elliot Stieglitz is a physician-scientist at the University of California, San Francisco whose research focuses on children diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML). He recently chaired a study, ADVL1512, a phase II clinical trial that tested the safety of trametinib in children with relapsed JMML. This trial met its primary objective and closed to accrual at the end of 2022. Dr. Stieglitz’s main laboratory focus is on developing novel therapies for JMML including CAR-T cells. He has generated patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of JMML that will serve as the pre-clinical model in which to test CAR-T cells on this grant. These PDXs were generated in collaboration with Dr. Eric Padron, a key opinion leader in CMML and a collaborator on this grant. Dr. Stieglitz has also collaborated extensively with Dr. Tasian, an international leader in CAR-T therapy who is a Co-PI on this grant. This multi-disciplinary team will work together to advance CLL-1 CAR-T cells and trametinib into the clinic for CMML and JMML patients.

Program Name(s)

CMML Initiative

Project Title

CLL-1 CAR-T cells and trametinib for the treatment of Ras-mutated CMML and JMML

University of Florida

Coming soon.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Enhancing Connection and Communication with Community-Based Oncology Practices to Improve Cancer Clinical Trial Recruitment: The ECCO Study

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

I (Reshmi Parameswaran) am a scientist working in the field of cancer immunotherapy for past 22 years. I received my Ph.D degree from Weizmann Institute of Israel in cell biology and then did postdoctoral training at Children's Hospital Los Angeles working on understanding the drug resistance mechanism of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Later I moved to Case Western University and my laboratory is focusing on developing new immunotherapies for liquid and solid cancers. We generated a new BAFF ligand based CAR-T therapy to treat B cell cancers and this entered into three clinical trials for treating lymphoma, multiple myeloma and autoimmune lupus. All are currently in phase-1 clinical trials. I have published about 25 articles on cancer immunotherapy and received multiple research grants to develop new immunotherapy strategies for cancer. I am committed to find the reason why HCLv patients fail chemotherapy and to develop a new therapy to sensitize these patients to standard chemotherapy.

Program Name(s)

Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Initiative

Project Title

Understanding the drug resistance mechanism and developing new therapeutic strategies for Hairy Cell Leukemia variant

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Margaret Shipp, MD, is Chief of the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the clinical and molecular heterogeneity of the large B-cell lymphomas (LBCLs) and Hodgkin lymphomas. Dr. Shipp has led efforts to define molecular signatures of LBCLs and Hodgkin lymphomas, identify biologically distinct subsets of these diseases, and characterize associated rational treatment targets including modulators of the host anti-tumor immune response.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Analysis and Targeting of Tumor-Associated Monocytes/Macrophages that Inhibit PD-1 Blockade

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Elise Chong is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a clinical investigator whose research program develops immunotherapeutic and non-chemotherapy-based approaches to improve the survival and quality of life of patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). She has a current focus on overcoming resistance to currently available, standard of care therapies; in particular, CAR T cell (CAR-T) resistance is one such focus. She has clinical expertise in the care of clinically complex lymphoma and CLL patients and is the Cellular Therapy Lymphoma Disease Lead at Penn.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Beta-hydroxybutyrate, a ketogenic dietary supplement, for patients with large B-cell lymphomas receiving CAR-T

TAP Partner

Allotera (formerly Wugen) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing next-generation, allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies for cancer. Allotera's proprietary gene-editing platform is designed to overcome key limitations of first-generation cell therapies, enabling scalable, off-the-shelf treatments with biologics-like cost of goods margins.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 2 registration-directed clinical study of Sofi-cel, an allogeneic CAR-T targeting CD7, in patients with T-ALL/T-LBL

The University of Melbourne

Dr. Lev Kats is head of the Targeted Therapeutics Laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He completed his PhD at Monash University and postdoctoral training at Beth Israel Deaconess Centre/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kats has made major contributions in the areas of targeted therapies, epigenetics and hematological malignancies including through discovery of important functions of cancer promoting genes and the characterization of the molecular mechanisms of anti-leukemic drugs. His laboratory uses model systems, functional and molecular genomics approaches to develop and test new therapeutic strategies for aggressive blood cancers.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Targeting DCAF1 as a novel treatment strategy for therapy resistant multiple myeloma

Van Andel Research Institute

Jonathan D. Licht, M.D., is an internationally recognized physician-scientist and medical oncologist whose work focuses on blood and other cancers and on developing innovative therapies. He is president and chief scientific officer of Van Andel Institute and previously directed the University of Florida Health Cancer Institute, leading it to National Cancer Institute designation in 2023. His prior roles include chief of Hematology/Oncology at both the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Northwestern University. His research on aberrant gene regulation and epigenetic mechanisms in leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and melanoma has been funded by the National Cancer Institute for more than 30
years, supported by multiple R01s, major foundation grants and long-standing support from Blood Cancer United and the Myeloma Solutions Fund. He has authored over 240 publications with more than 37,000 citations and has treated patients with acute leukemia and multiple myeloma.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Epigenetic Mechanisms and Targeting in Hematological Malignancy

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

I am a pediatric oncologist, who is interested in using the patient’s immune system to fight cancer. I grew up in Germany and moved to the US in 1992 after obtaining my medical degree. After completing my training in pediatric and oncology, I became faculty at the Cancer Center of Texas Children’s Hospital and the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine. In the laboratory I focused on developing immune cell therapies for cancer patients, which I translated with my research team into the clinic. In addition, I managed pediatric cancer patients, who underwent bone marrow transplantation, and participated in numerous clinical studies. In 2017 I became Chair of the Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The department focuses on evaluating novel transplant and cell therapy approaches using genetic engineering approaches to augment the ability of the immune system to fight cancer.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

CD70-directed CAR T-cell therapy for the treatment of relapsed/refractory pediatric AML

Durham VA Health Care System

Dr. Friedman is a hematologist-oncologist at the Durham VA Health Care System (DVAHCS) and National TeleOncology (NTO) Program, a Professor at the Duke University School of Medicine, and is the Deputy Director of the VA National Oncology Program. She is the DVAHCS site PI for the NCI and VA Interagency Group to Accelerate Trials Enrollment (NAVIGATE) program, which facilitates enrollment of Veterans with cancer into NCI-funded clinical trials. She is the lead for the Cancer Clinical Research Service (CCRS) in NTO, which offers clinical trial navigation to Veterans with cancer and runs decentralized cancer clinical trials across the VA network.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

REACH: Researching & Enhancing Access to Clinical trials in Veterans with Hematologic cancers

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Liling Wan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She received a B.S. in Biological Sciences and Biotechnology from Tsinghua University and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. She conducted postdoctoral research at Rockefeller University where she studied chromatin regulators in cancer. The Wan lab studies basic gene regulatory mechanisms and how these mechanisms are dysregulated in cancer, with the goal of harnessing these insights for therapeutics. Her research has revealed how chromatin “reader” proteins impact gene regulation in cancer such as acute myeloid leukemia and led to early drug development efforts targeting these mechanisms. Dr. Wan has been recognized for her innovative and impactful research through numerous awards including AACR NextGen Star, NIH Pathway to Independence Award, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, and was recently named a Pew-Stewart Scholar, V Foundation Scholar, and ASH Scholar.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Epigenetic Mechanisms in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Washington University in St. Louis

Stephen Oh, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Medicine and Co-Chief of the Division of Hematology at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Oh’s clinical practice and research efforts are focused on hematologic malignancies including myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). His laboratory employs patient samples and animal models to investigate fundamental mechanisms driving the initiation, development, and progression of MPNs, with a particular focus on inflammatory cytokine signaling networks in MPNs. Dr. Oh has extensive clinical experience in the diagnosis and management of MPN patients and has contributed to numerous clinical trials investigating novel targeted therapies for MPN patients. The long-term objective of his work is to translate the findings from his laboratory research into improved therapies for MPN patients.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

CMML Initiative

Project Title

Exploiting Novel Therapeutic Vulnerabilities in Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia

Therapeutic RSK1 Targeting in Myeloid Malignancies