Who We Fund

Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Bern is a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Timothy Ley’s lab at Washington University School of Medicine and a clinical fellow in the Hematology and Oncology program. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Physics from Duke University. Following undergraduate, he completed M.D./Ph.D. training at Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned his Ph.D. in Immunology, studying mechanisms regulating natural killer cell activation, in the laboratory of Dr. Wayne Yokoyama. He then joined the Physician Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine for Internal Medicine residency and Heme/Onc fellowship. His current research is focused on understanding mechanisms of chemotherapy resistance in Primary-Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia. His long-term goal is to identify novel therapeutic strategies for this population of patients with extremely poor outcomes and few treatment options.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Identifying Mechanisms of Chemoresistance Induced by MECOM in Primary-Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia

University of Michigan

Dr. Jolanta Grembecka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology, University of Michigan. Dr. Grembecka’s research is focused on development of small molecule inhibitors of proteins involved in leukemogenesis. Her laboratory has developed the first small molecule inhibitors of the menin-MLL1 interaction as a treatment for acute leukemia, which were advanced to clinical studies in acute myeloid leukemia patients. Her laboratory is also developing new targeted therapies for hematologic cancers by blocking novel epigenetic targets, including ASH1L histone methyltransferase.

Dr. Grembecka has received PhD in Chemistry at Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland. She completed postdoctoral training in drug discovery at the University of Virginia and in 2009 started her independent position at the University of Michigan. Dr. Grembecka is a co-author on over 80 scientific publications and an inventor on 15 patents. She is a Blood Cancer United Scholar and ACS Research Scholar recipient.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeted combination therapies for leukemia with NUP98 translocations

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Lindsley is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Immunology from Washington University School of Medicine, then completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is a member of the MDS Genetics Subcommittee for the NIH National MDS Study, NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine Steering Committee, and the International Working Group for Prognosis in MDS (IWG-PM) molecular committee. The primary focus of his laboratory is the biology and treatment of myeloid malignancies. His genetic studies have led to new genomic models of leukemia classification and MDS outcome after stem cell transplantation. His laboratory uses mouse and cell line models to dissect the mechanistic basis of genetic cooperation during myeloid disease progression, with a specific focus on leukemia initiation in patients with predisposition syndromes and mutations that cause epigenetic alterations.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Genetic pathways of myeloid transformation and treatment response

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Dr. Samuel Taylor is a Hematology-Oncology Fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center specializing in myeloid malignancies and bone marrow transplantation. After attending Yale for his undergraduate degree, he joined the National Cancer Institute where he investigated immune regulation in graft-versus-host disease. He then completed his MD-PhD at the Tri-Institutional program, where his doctoral research in the Cantley laboratory described how dietary fructose improves cell survival in hypoxia, increasing nutrient absorption and tumor growth in the intestine. Dr. Taylor has published 12 peer-reviewed manuscripts including first-author papers in Nature and The Journal of Experimental Medicine. His current work integrates spatial transcriptomics with single-cell approaches to understand immune surveillance in the bone marrow microenvironment following allogeneic transplantation, aiming to identify biomarkers that predict post-transplant relapse in myelofibrosis.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Spatial profiling of immune-mutant cell interactions in myelofibrosis before and after allogeneic stem cell transplantation

Northwestern University

Dr. Alan Zhou is an Associate Professor of Dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where he leads clinical and translational research in cutaneous lymphomas. Trained at Harvard, Oxford, NIH, and Northwestern, Dr. Zhou combines expertise in immunology, genetics, and microbiome science to uncover how immune and microbial factors influence cancer behavior and therapy response. His work integrates clinical trials, molecular profiling, and microbiome studies to develop precision diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and related blood cancers.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Mapping and Targeting the Tumor-Immune-Microbiome Interface in Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma to Advance Precision Diagnosis and Therapy

University of Fribourg

Nicola Vannini after his MSc degree in Biological Sciences obtained at the University of Parma, moved to La Jolla (CA) where he worked for two years at the Burnham Institute in the laboratory of Prof. John C. Reed studying the metabolic basis of cardiac aging. He completed his PhD at the National Institute for Cancer Research in Genova (Italy) under the supervision of Prof. Adriana Albini, where he worked on nutritional interventions to prevent tumor progression. After his PhD he moved to EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) in the laboratory directed by Prof. Matthias Lütolf and Prof. Olaia Naveiras at the EPFL, where he developed targeted metabolic interventions to boost hematopoietic recovery.

Since March 2016 Nicola Vannini is group leader at the Ludwig Cancer Institute at the University of Lausanne . His primary research goals are the understanding of metabolic changes occurring during aging in the hematopoietic and immune compartments and their impact on cancer immunotherapy.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Mitochondrial reprogramming to restore age-driven dysfunction in T cell and boost CAR-T cell therapy

Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Walter is the Edward P. Evans Endowed Professor of Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Scientific Director of the Center for MDS in the Siteman Cancer Center. His laboratory at Washington University focuses on the discovery of mutations within the genomes of hematopoietic cells from patients with myeloid precursor conditions and MDS and the clonal evolution that occurs during disease progression. The lab continues to study the contribution of spliceosome gene mutations for MDS initiation and progression using primary patient samples and pre-clinical models with the goal of translating findings into the clinic to improve the lives of patients with blood cancers.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Exploiting Vulnerabilities in RNA Splicing to Treat Hematologic Malignancies

Boston Children's Hospital

George Q. Daley, MD, PhD is Dean, Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. His research has focused on stem cell and cancer biology, with an emphasis on hematopoietic development and diseases of the bone marrow, blood and immune system. Daley earned his AB and MD degrees from Harvard and a PhD in biology from MIT. He has been a trainee, fellow and staff physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. Prior to becoming Dean at HMS, he was an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Director of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation Program of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Association of Arts and Sciences.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived CAR-T and CAR-NK Cells for Immunotherapy of Leukemia and Lymphoma

University of Nebraska Medical Center

Dr. Chengfeng Bi is an Assistant Professor of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. His research centers on the molecular pathogenesis of blood cancers and the development of novel therapeutic strategies. With over a decade of experience in lymphoma research, Dr. Bi has extensive expertise in translational studies and a sustained commitment to advancing therapeutic innovation in hematologic malignancies. He serves as the Principal Investigator of the North American Mantle Cell Lymphoma Project (NAMCLP), a collaborative network of 23 institutions across North America dedicated to improving the clinical management of Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) through large-scale, multi-institutional research and the translation of biological discoveries into improved patient outcomes.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

SHP-1 Activation by Sorafenib Derivatives as a Novel Therapeutic Strategy for Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. Will has been a group leader at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine since 2016. She obtained her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Freiburg, Germany and underwent further training in hematology/oncology with Dr. Ulrich Steidl. With a passion for and through the lens of stem cell biology, Britta’s laboratory seeks to discover novel therapeutic options for patients with myeloid malignancies. Current research concentrates on two largely uncharted territories in blood stem cell aging and leukemic stem cell maintenance - iron homeostasis and highly selective autophagy. Dr. Will also serves as co-leader of the Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Program and directs the Cancer Stem Cell Pharmacodynamics Unit at the NCI-designated Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center. She is the recipient of prestigious young investigator awards, including from the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance, Gilead, AAMDSIF, Feldstein Medical Foundation, and the Leukemia Research Foundation.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Therapeutically actionable molecular safeguards in leukemic stem cells

TAP Partner

Rgenta Therapeutics is developing a pipeline of oral, small-molecule RNA-targeting medicines with an initial focus on oncology and neurological disorders. Rgenta has a proprietary platform to mine the massive genomics data to identify targetable RNA processing events and to design small-molecule glues to modulate the interactions among the spliceosome, regulatory proteins, and RNAs. 

Rgenta is working closely with TAP to further develop RNA-targeting molecules by supporting preclinical studies with the goal of moving towards clinical development in hematological malignancies. 

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

Supporting development of RNA-targeting molecules for blood cancers

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Daniel Lucas uses microscopy to understand how blood cells are produced in the marrow of the bone and how leukemia inhibits this process. A native Spaniard, he obtained his PhD in Madrid training with Drs. Antonio Bernad and Luis Blanco. Then he moved to New York for postdoctoral training in Paul Frenette’s lab. There he discovered basic mechanisms through which the nervous system regulates blood cell production. He also identified macrophages and megakaryocytes -two types of cells produced by the blood stem cells- as key regulators of those very same blood stem cells. This was the first demonstration that the stem cells were regulated by their own progeny. He established his own research group at the University of Michigan Medical School before being recruited to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. His group has discovered mechanisms that promote faster blood recovery after transplantation and deciphered how several types of blood cells assemble in the bone marrow.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Cellular Crosstalk In The Normal And Malignant Bone Marrow