Who We Fund

University of California, San Francisco

Sujata grew up in a small rural village in India, where access to education was limited, especially for girls. Encouraged by her supportive family, she pursued studies in biotechnology and earned advanced degrees from prestigious institutions in India and Australia. Her PhD focused on discovering new medicines with novel targets for malaria and toxoplasmosis, where she identified new drug candidates with potential as therapeutics against globally and economically relevant parasites. As a postdoctoral researcher at UCSF, she now applies her expertise to designing novel protein-based immunotherapies and highly targeted antibodies for blood cancers, including acute myeloid leukemia. Sujata’s work bridges basic science and medicine, combining structural biology, protein engineering, and biophysics to develop safer, more effective therapies that could transform treatment options for patients worldwide and address critical unmet medical needs in oncology.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

A Structure-Guided, Conformation-Specific Antibody-Drug Conjugate for AML Immunotherapy

Medical College of Wisconsin

Nirav Shah, MD, MSHP is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Division of Hematology and Oncology, specializing in lymphoma, stem cell transplant, and CAR-T therapy. He graduated with honors and Alpha Omega Alpha honor society membership from University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine in 2008. He then completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Harvard affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital in 2011. Following residency, he went to the University of Pennsylvania where he completed Hematology/Oncology fellowship and received a Master of Science in Health Policy research in 2015. His current focus is the development of dual targeted anti-CD20, anti-CD19 CAR-T cells (CAR20.19) for B-cell malignancies. Results of a Phase 1 trial with CAR20.19 T-cells were published in Nature Medicine in Oct. 2020. Data from that study directed development of three new CAR20.19 clinical trials led by Dr. Shah all actively enrolling patients.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Improving Bispecific CD20/CD19 CAR T-cell Therapy to Overcome Resistance Mechanisms in B-cell Malignancies

TAP Partner

Enterome is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing breakthrough immunomodulatory drugs for the treatment of cancer and immune diseases. Enterome’s pioneering approach to drug discovery is based on its unique and powerful bacterial Mimicry drug discovery platform, allowing it to analyze and uncover new biological insights from the millions of gut bacterial proteins in constant cross-talk with the human body. Its first-in-class small protein and peptide drug candidates modulate the immune system by closely mimicking the structure, effect or actions of specific antigens, hormones, or cytokines. 

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 2 trial of EO2463, a novel microbial-derived peptide therapeutic vaccine, as monotherapy, and in combination with lenalidomide and rituximab, for treatment of patients with indolent NHL

Monash University

Professor Jake Shortt is a clinician scientist who is co-appointed by Monash Health as Director of Clinical Haematology and by Monash University as the Head of Haematology Research at the School of Clinical Sciences. Monash Health provides lymphoma services to the largest Australian healthcare network in the Australian state of Victoria. He is also an Honorary Clinical Professor at the Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, University of Melbourne.

Professor Shortt is group leader of the 'Blood Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory' at Monash, seeking to discover and translate new lymphoma treatments to the clinic. As a clinician scientist his research covers the full translational spectrum from scientific discovery to advanced clinical trials and registry initiatives. For more than a decade his research has focussed on poor-risk lymphoid cancers, particularly those hallmarked by activation of a gene called 'MYC' which features in some of the most aggressive lymphomas.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Exploiting escape from Y-inactivation as a synthetic dependency in MYC-driven lymphoma

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Lane’s laboratory and translational research focuses on the biology of high-risk blood cancers, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), and blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN). His goal is to identify new therapeutic targets and to understand treatment resistance. He is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a physician in the Leukemia Program, and a lab investigator in the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is director of the BPDCN Center at Dana-Farber. He is also an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Dr. Lane received a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University, and MD and PhD degrees from Washington University. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowships in hematology and medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN): understanding disease biology to improve therapy

Stanford University

Ravi Majeti MD, PhD is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor, Professor of Medicine (Hematology), and Director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was an undergraduate at Harvard, earned his MD and PhD from UCSF, trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and completed his Hematology Fellowship at Stanford. While at Stanford, he completed post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Irving Weissman, where he investigated AML stem cells. Dr. Majeti directs an active NIH-funded laboratory that focuses on the molecular characterization and therapeutic targeting of leukemia stem cells in human hematologic disorders, particularly AML, and has published >120 peer-reviewed articles. He is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists, the Blood Cancer United Scholar Award, and the McCulloch and Till Award from ISEH.

Program Name(s)

CMML Initiative

Discovery

Project Title

Targeting the inflammatory GM-CSF pathway in high risk CMML

Therapeutic Targeting of DOCK1 for Prevention of Clonal Expansion of TP53-Mutant Clonal Hematopoiesis and Treatment of TP53-Mutant AML

University of Southern California

Dr. Sheng Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Translational Genomics, at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (USC). She is the Program Co-Leader of Epigenetic Regulation in Cancer (ERC) at the USC NCI-designated Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Li received her PhD in Computational Biology from Cornell University in 2014, where she focused on the epigenome dynamics of leukemia relapse. Following her PhD, she served as an Instructor of Bioinformatics at Weill Cornell Medicine. In 2016, Dr. Li joined the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022.

In 2024, her lab transitioned to the USC Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Li leads a research program centered on understanding the impact of somatic mutations and aging on blood cancer initiation by identifying critical epigenetic aberrations that disrupt gene expression regulating hematopoiesis. Her work leverages multi-omics and integrative data mining to study how age-related inflammation shapes the evolutionary trajectories of mutant hematopoietic stem cells in leukemogenesis. The long-term goal of her research is to identify novel therapeutics to mitigate leukemogenesis and extend human health span and life span. Dr. Li recevied NextGen Star Award from American Association for Cancer Research and Maximizing Investigators' Research Award from NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Epigenetic heterogeneity in age-related clonal hematopoiesis and acute myeloid leukemia

Yale University

I received my BS in biochemistry from Gonzaga University and my PhD in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology under the guidance of Dr. Melissa Jurica at UC Santa Cruz. In the Jurica lab, I studied RNA splicing, the fundamental process of removing non-coding pieces of RNA from regions which code proteins. My dissertation focused on the characterization of an RNA helicase and its role in early spliceosome assembly. Early spliceosomal proteins are commonly mutated in human diseases such as blood cancers, but until recently, scientists did not have the tools to allow for dissection of the mechanisms involved. I chose to pursue my postdoctoral training in a blood cancer lab to dive deep into the role of splicing factor mutations in myelodysplastic syndromes and leukemia. I seek to apply my expertise in RNA processing biochemistry to blood cancers with the goal to contribute to better understanding and novel therapeutic approaches.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Revisiting splicing factor mutations in MDS/AML – delving deep and wide

Washington University in St. Louis

Stefan Tarnawsky, M.D.; Ph.D. is a Hematology/Oncology fellow and junior physician scientist at the Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, MO. His research focus is understanding the origin of myeloid blood cancers. His graduate work at Indiana University with Dr. Merv Yoder and Dr. Rebecca Chan focused on the prenatal origin of childhood blood cancers. This work led to a F30 award from the NHLBI and three first-author research publications, including one in the Journal of Clinical Investigations. Currently, under the mentorship of Dr. Matt Walter, M.D., Stefan studies how splicing factor gene mutations dysregulate blood cell growth. He thereby aims to identify novel therapies for the ~50% of myelodysplastic syndrome patients and ~20% of acute myeloid leukemia patients that have these mutations. His career goal is to continue this research focus as an independent investigator studying and treating blood cancer patients at an academic medical center.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

The Role of TP53 in Mutant U2AF1 Myelodysplastic Syndromes

Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. Rouce is a pediatric oncologist and physician scientist whose clinical research focuses on difficult-to-treat blood cancers, specifically how to harness the immune system to attack them. She has spent the past 12 years in the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Texas Children’s Hospital leading a research program translating genetically engineered immune cells to first-in-human immunotherapy trials. She has significant experience in every aspect of clinical trial development and in addition to serving as principal investigator on CAR-T trials for blood cancers, has served as Project Leader for projects for the NIH Lymphoma SPORE, Blood Cancer United Specialized Center of Research, and Stand Up to Cancer. She leads health equity and disparities initiatives locally and nationally and is dedicated to addressing access barriers to novel cancer clinical trials for children, adolescents/young adults, underrepresented minorities, patients with limited resources and those with geographic constraints.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Novel CD7 CAR T-cells for refractory T-cell malignancies affecting pediatric and AYA patients

Indiana Universty

My clinical and research interest is to develop therapies that enhance the immune system to fight blood cancer. I serve as the IND holder responsible for the clinical development for the CD4CAR , and the CAR T cells are manufactured under this IND and the GMP conditions at Indiana University. This work is done in collaboration with IcellGene therapeutics. It is designed to treat T cell leukemia and lymphoma. We have treated three patients so far and results were very promising. CD4, the target for this CAR is expressed on CMML and we are not only planning to try this CAR in CMML, but we will be studying mechanisms of response and resistance to this treatment as we go, and also improving on the structure of this CAR to be more effective with the goal of curing CMML.

Program Name(s)

CMML Initiative

Project Title

Development of cellular therapy for CMML and the Immune landscape of response and resistance

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Nze is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Nze's clinical interests are in malignant hematology and oncology with a focus on Lymphoma. He is broadly interested in healthcare delivery system design, value-based healthcare research, and the health policy contexts that shape care delivery. He has been a longtime advocate for equity in health care delivery and the elements that lead to differential access and outcomes in care for vulnerable populations. He aims to combine excellence in delivering clinical oncologic care to cancer patients and investigate how we can optimally structure our healthcare system to ensure equitable cancer care for all.  

Program Name(s)

IMPACT

Project Title

Research Infrastructure to Promote Enrollment of Underserved Patients on Clinical Trials