Who We Fund

The University of Adelaide

Associate Professor Daniel Thomas is a Stanford-trained physician scientist who leads the Myeloid Metabolism Laboratory in the Precision Medicine Theme of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute at the University of Adelaide, Australia. As a clinician, Dan is passionate about direct bench to bedside translation and leads several innovative mutation-directed precision medicine clinical trials for blood cancers in Australia. Dan has published more than 48 peer-reviewed papers and he has received 16 prizes for his research including the Albert-Baikie Medal and highly competitive funding (CSL Centenary Fellowship, Snowdome and K99-R00 NCI Pathway to Independence award.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Identification and Molecular Analysis of Pre-Myelofibrotic Stem Cells

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Graubert is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Hematologic Malignancy Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center where he holds the Jon and JoAnn Hagler Chair in Oncology. Dr. Graubert is a physician-scientist with a laboratory-based research focus on the genetics of myeloid malignancies, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). His group has used new technologies to identify genetic alterations in patients with MDS and AML, then created animal models to study their mechanism of action and susceptibility to novel therapies. In addition to his research, Dr. Graubert oversees faculty recruitment and development for the Hematologic Malignancy Program and provides clinical care in the Center for Leukemia. He co-leads the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Consortium Leukemia Program, is an Associate Member of the Broad Institute, and serves on scientific review panels for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the American Society of Hematology, the National Institutes of Health, and Genome Canada.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Exploiting Vulnerabilities in RNA Splicing to Treat Hematologic Malignancies

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

Indiana University

Dr. Yan Liu received his PhD degree in Molecular Biology from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Yan completed his postdoctoral training in hematology in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Nimer at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Dr. Liu joined Indiana University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in 2010 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016. Currently, Dr. Liu is an Associate Professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Liu is the Co-leader of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Liu laboratory investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) aging and pathogenesis of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The goal of this Translational Research Program award is to understand the pathogenesis of MDS and develop novel therapeutic approaches to improve MDS treatment.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Development of therapeutic strategy for the treatment of MDS

Duke University Medical Center

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Qi is a well-trained synthetic chemist, chemical biologist, and biologist with an interdisciplinary background in drug development. His research is focused on designing and developing biologically relevant small molecule inhibitors and degraders of epigenetic protein targets and utilizing these chemical tools to study the translational potential of these targets in cancers, including blood cancer.

Dr. Ken Anderson is well-known physician scientist who studies and treats MM. His research has led to a variety of novel therapies for clinical MM treatment.

Together, this team has brought multiple targets into potential treatment development for MM, including HDACs, KDMs, and RPN13. The complementary expertise between these two PIs will uncover novel biological insights into MM that can bring novel therapies into other hematological malignancies.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Dissect the function of histone demethylase KDM5 on overcoming drug resistance toward immunotherapy in multiple myeloma

Houston Methodist Research Institute

I am a translational tumor immunologist. I have 30 years of experience as a well-funded and published researcher and am one of the leading investigators in the fields of tumor immunology in myeloma and other cancers. My laboratory has been working on: (1) characterizing myeloma- and tumor-specific T cells and their subsets and examining their functions, (2) identifying novel myeloma-associated antigens and better methods for immunotherapy, (3) investigating the cross-talk between the tumor microenvironment (TME) and immune system, (4) conducting clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of immunizing patients with idiotype or dendritic cell-based vaccines, and (5) exploring immunotherapies using myeloma antigens such as DKK1. Our recent research focuses on: (a) developing novel therapeutic mAbs and CAR-T cells for cancers, (b) identifying T-cell subsets that have potent antitumor effects after adoptive transfer, and (c) identifying TME components that induce tumor drug resistance.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Developing Novel CAR-T Cell Therapy For Hematologic Malignancies

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Garfall is a hematologist-oncologist specializing in the care of multiple myeloma patients and research on new multiple myeloma therapies. He is a member of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is an Assistant Professor of Medicine. Dr. Garfall completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University, medical school at New York University, residency in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and hematology/oncology fellowship at Penn. Dr. Garfall’s research focuses on immunotherapy. He has conducted clinical trials with CAR T cells and bispecific antibodies for multiple myeloma. He is specifically interested on developing new approaches to prevent relapse in multiple myeloma patients.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Limited-duration bispecific antibody therapy for multiple myeloma

Anti-Sox2 immunotherapy to prevent multiple myeloma relapse

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of Dr. Ulrich Steidl at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY and currently studying the role of H2.0 homeobox-like protein, called Hlx in short, in the development and maintenance of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Hlx is overexpressed in 80% of AML patients at transcript level. However, we lack the understanding of this protein’s function at molecular level.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Role of HLX in leukemia induction and maintenance

UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

I am a first-generation college graduate with a Master’s degree in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Biochemistry. My long-term career goal is to lead my own research group focused on understanding key immunological pathways by which the human body fights infection and to develop effective therapies that target blood cancers. During my research career thus far, I have gained a unique repertoire with expertise in chemical biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology with broad knowledge in immunology, cancer biology, and virology. Currently, I am training at the University of North Carolina's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center under the mentorship of Blossom Damania who is a leader in the fields of viral oncogenesis and viral immunology. As many people have had the misfortune of personal or family experience with blood cancers, myself included, I am devoted to advancing my training and progressing research in this field to help alleviate the burden of these diseases.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Elucidating the role of FAM72A in EBV-driven B cell lymphomagenesis

The George Washington University

Dr. Vichare’s research investigates the impact of health policies on health equity. Her training as primary care physician and health services researcher, and professional experiences shape her research approaches. Her recent studies in collaboration with Dr. Luo and Ms. Erikson utilize Medicaid claims and generate foundational evidence on health workforce in Medicaid. She implements creative analytic approaches, including in her ongoing funded research projects that innovatively link physician race/ethnicity and Medicaid claims. The findings are critical to support policy improvements in health workforce diversity. Dr. Vichare has a solid understanding of Medicaid policies for cancer care. Her publications address salient issues relevant to the oncology specialty workforce, including a national study of radiation oncology workforce. Dr. Vichare developed an NQFendorsed quality measure to address variation in radiation therapy for bone metastasis. Her transdisciplinary research and resulting collaborations have produced notable publications (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1t5tUQmM5aboAj/bibliography/public/). Dr. Vichare has a track record of successfully managing teams, budgets and creating realistic research plans and timelines. Her experience in cancer health policy, familiarity with oncology specialty workforce and research approaches grounded in contemporary health equity frameworks demonstrate her expertise and motivation necessary to lead the proposed project.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Addressing Inequities in Access to Care for Patients with Hematologic Malignancy: Understanding the Impact of Telehealth Policies in Medicaid

University of Cambridge

George Vassiliou is Professor of Hematological Medicine and Co-lead of the Hematological Malignancies Program at the University of Cambridge, and Consultant Hematologist at Cambridge University Hospitals.

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.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Development of a clinical program for myeloid cancer prevention