Who We Fund

University of Cambridge

George Vassiliou is Professor of Hematological Medicine, Director of the Blood Cancer United/Blood Cancer UK Specialist Center of Research (SCOR) in Myeloid Cancer Prevention and Co-lead of the Hematological Malignancies Virtual Institute at the University of Cambridge. He is also an Honorary Consultant Hematologist at Cambridge University Hospitals, where he founded and leads Europe’s first clonal hematopoiesis clinic. 

He studies the pre-clinical evolution, molecular pathogenesis and treatment of myeloid cancers. Highlights of his work include the co-discovery of the shared precursor of myeloid cancers, clonal hematopoiesis (CH), the description of its lifelong natural history and the first demonstration that individuals at risk of these cancers can be identified years in advance, opening the prospect of their prevention. He also developed the first genomic diagnostic tools for myeloid cancers, discovered mechanisms of how they develop and identified hundreds of potential treatment targets using the first genome-wide CRISPR genetic screen in any human cancer. His work has led to development of new treatments, including METTL3 inhibitors that are now in clinical trials against acute myeloid leukemia.

In recognition of his work, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and awarded the European Haematology Association Research Excellence Award in 2026.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Development of a clinical program for myeloid cancer prevention

University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus

Dr. Daniel Pollyea has received degrees from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and Stanford University. He served as Chief Medical Resident at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He has been the Principal Investigator for multiple early-phase clinical trials and been involved in the clinical development and approval of four drugs for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, spoken to audiences around the world about this work, and is currently the Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines Committee on AML. His work involves developing ways to target leukemia stem cells in patients with AML and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Eradication can result in deep and durable remissions, or even cures. His team’s efforts have involved identifying vulnerabilities in the ways that leukemia stem cells process energy. These weaknesses can be specifically exploited with novel drug therapies, and Dr. Pollyea is focused on developing and running clinical trials that use these agents to target these weaknesses.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Targeting Leukemia Stem Cells in the Clinical Setting: The Development of A Comprehensive Program

Boston Children's Hospital

Dr. Rohan Bhattacharya earned his Ph.D. from Duke University under the supervision of Dr. Samira Musah, where he studied how mutations linked to congenital heart disease affect kidney podocyte development and function using organs-on-chips. Working as a Research Fellow in Dr. Leonard I. Zon’s Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, he investigates kinase-dependent protein trafficking pathways to selectively upregulate ‘eat me’ signals on the surface of leukemic cells, thereby aiding their macrophage-mediated removal and restoring healthy hematopoietic hemostasis. Trained as a stem cell and developmental biologist, Dr. Bhattacharya aims to bridge stem cell biology research with translational applications, discovering new biological insights and advancing immunotherapies for leukemia. Beyond the bench, he is deeply dedicated to mentorship, open-access science, engaging local high school students in STEM initiatives, and serving as the associate editor of the Journal of Translational Medicine.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Programming macrophage-mediated hematopoietic surveillance for precision targeting of AML

University of Cincinnati

Eric J. Vick, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist at the University of Cincinnati who studies how blood cancers such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) survive and resist therapy. His research focuses on inflammatory signaling pathways that leukemia cells use to grow, with the goal of identifying new, mechanism-based treatment strategies. His CDP project investigates dependencies created by blocking IRAK4 signaling to uncover vulnerabilities in leukemia stem and progenitor cells.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting Myeloid Malignancies through IRAK4 Synthetic Lethality Dependencies

Boston Children's Hospital

In the last 17 years, I developed gene editing tools to improve cancer immunotherapy or promote safer applications of human hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy. I pioneered this field since when the first gene editing enzymes were shown to be potentially useful for therapeutic purposes. In 2012, I published a break-through work where we demonstrated for the first time the possibility to genetically inactivate the T cell receptor in primary T cells for improving safety/efficacy of cancer adoptive immunotherapies. This innovative approach is now widely used in immunotherapy field for generating allo-compatible T cells or to express CAR genes under the TCR promoter. In 2014, I developed the first protocol that allows targeted transgene integration in human HSC capable of long-term multilineage repopulation. My current efforts are aimed to move these advanced genetic engineering strategies towards an effective therapeutic treatment for inherited and acquired hematologic diseases.

 

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Towards clinical testing of epitope editing to enable novel adoptive immunotherapies

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Sarah K Tasian, MD PhD is a pediatric oncologist and physician-scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who is interested in development of molecularly-targeted therapeutics and immunotherapies for children with high-risk leukemias. She specialises in the clinical care of children with leukemia and lymphoma, is an internationally-recognized expert in pediatric ALL and AML biology and novel therapeutics, and serves as Chief of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at CHOP, where she holds the Joshua Kahan Endowed Chair in Pediatric Leukemia Research. Her federally-funded translational laboratory research program focuses upon preclinical and early-phase clinical testing of small molecule inhibitors and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapies in high-risk genetic subsets of childhood ALL, AML, and JMML. As an experienced clinical trialist, Dr Tasian also has several leadership roles in the Children’s Oncology Group ALL and Myeloid Diseases executive committees and is the clinical trials leader of the international Blood Cancer United PedAL consortium, working collaboratively with colleagues across the world to advance precision medicine therapeutics for children with relapsed/refractory leukemias.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Precision Medicine Inhibitor and Immunotherapy Approaches for High-Risk Childhood Leukemias

Yale University

Markus Müschen, MD, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Oncology and the Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Professor of Hematology at Yale University. His research focuses on signal transduction and metabolic pathways in lymphoid malignancies, aiming to identify therapeutic strategies to overcome drug resistance in leukemia and lymphoma. After clinical training at the University of Cologne and the Institut Pasteur in Paris, he completed postdoctoral fellowships with Klaus Rajewsky and the late Janet D. Rowley. Before joining Yale, Dr. Müschen led the Hematological Malignancies Program at UCSF. He is a two-time NCI Outstanding Investigator (R35), HHMI Faculty Scholar, and member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. As Chief of the Basic Science Division at Yale Cancer Center, he mentors nine junior faculty and research group leaders and fosters the next generation of cancer researchers.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Rational repurposing effort to disrupt beta-catenin protein degradation in B-cell malignancies

Targeted hyperactivation of oncogenic STAT5-signaling in lymphoid malignancies

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr. Meshinchi and Dr. Locatelli will serve as co-PIs.

Dr. Meshinchi, a pediatric oncologist and stem cell transplant physician at Fred Hutch, has 25 years of experience in AML biology and novel therapeutics. He led AML biology efforts for Children's Oncology Group (COG) for over two decades and identified several AML-specific targets, including mesothelin, now in clinical development.

Dr. Locatelli, Director of Pediatric Oncology at Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital (OPBG) in Italy, is one of the most renowned oncologists in the world. He is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the treatment of pediatric leukemias, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and immunotherapies including CAR-T cell therapy. As chair of the Italian Association for Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (AIEOP) AML working party, he has positioned OPBG at the forefront of early-phase CAR-T trials for pediatric cancers, offering hope to children with otherwise untreatable cancers.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Novel Immunotherapeutic Development in Childhood AML

Multi-modal Immunotherapeutic Targeting of AML-restricted Targets in Infants and Children

Novel immunotherapeutic strategies in infants with high risk AML

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr. Danielle Kirkey received her MD from Rush Medical College in 2016, then began her Pediatrics residency training at Stanford University where she was selected to serve as a Chief Resident. She was recruited to University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Hospital for her Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship where she joined the lab of Dr. Soheil Meshinchi at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Her research is focused on identifying therapeutic targets in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and developing immunotherapies, such as CAR T cells, to treat AML. Dr. Kirkey is passionate about translating scientific discoveries in the lab into novel targeted therapies in the clinic to improve care for patients with high-risk leukemias given their dismal outcomes. Following completion of her Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship in 2023, she has continued her research developing novel immunotherapies for AML at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and is an attending physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Expanding the Therapeutic Potential of CLEC2A CAR T cells for Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Cleveland Clinic

Paolo Caimi is a physician and clinical investigator at the Cleveland Clinic, where he is also the Associate Bone Marrow Transplant Director for Cellular Therapy. Dr. Caimi completed his medical training at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. He finished residency at Johns Hopkins University / Sinai Hospital Residency Program in Internal Medicine followed by a hematology and oncology fellowship at Case Western Reserve University. His clinical focus is on the care of patients with lymphoid malignancies and his research is centered around early phase trials, with an emphasis on phase I trials of cellular therapy.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

BAFF-ligand CAR T-cells and pre-apheresis B-cell lymphodepletion for relapsed/refractory CLL

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

MD- Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Residencies and Fellowships in Clinical and radiation Oncology in Israel and Memorial Sloan-Kettering. Armored Brigade Physician (Major), IDF, project leader R&D branch, IDF.

Attending and Member, MSKCC. Co-Leader Lymphoma DMT, Chief- Radiation Hematology Service. Hodgkin and Non-Hodgkin NCCN guidelines committees.

Chairman of the International Lymphoma Radiation Oncology Group (www.ilrog.org)—over 1300 members in 75 countries.

Clinical Research focus on role of RT in salvage of lymphomas, breast cancer after chest RT, combined modality in PCNSL, RT for gastric MZL. Currently- clinical and biological aspects of sub-lethal radiation for lymphomas; role of RT to improve CAR-T cell therapy.

Translational research interest: Past- ATM mutations and risk of second cancers; autophagy as a mechanism for tumor cell death after radiation. Present- mechanisms and predictors of lethal effects of very low-dose RT on lymphoma cells and their environment.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Impact of sublethal radiation dose on tumor response, microenvironment and the immune system

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

William Matsui is a Professor of Oncology, Director of the Hematologic Malignancy Program, Associate Chair of Research, and the Deputy Director of the LiveSTRONG Cancer Institutes at the Dell Medical School and the University of Texas at Austin. He also serves as the interim Vice Dean of Research for Dell Med. Dr. Matsui's research has focused on understanding the intersection between cancer, stem cell, and developmental biology. His laboratory first identified unique populations of cancer cells with stem cell properties in multiple myeloma and found that several pathways regulating normal stem cells, including those involved in embryonic development, are abnormally activated in cancer stem cells. Importantly, these basic research studies have simultaneously been translationally relevant and served as the basis for over a dozen novel clinical trials.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Stem cell features and Notch signaling in p53 deleted multiple myeloma