Who We Fund

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

I am an assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where I treat patients suffering from leukemias and lymphomas. In my clinical practice, I experience firsthand the lack of treatment options and the poor outcomes in patients with relapsed T cell leukemias and T cell lymphomas. Therefore, my laboratory research focuses on the development of new therapies for the treatment of these T cell cancers. Using my background in T cell biology (Paul et al Immunity 2012, Paul et al Science Signaling 2014) and my collaborators expertise in antibody design, I developed therapies that selectively kill T cell cancers and spare the majority of normal T cells (Paul et al. Sci. Transl. Med. 2021). My goal is to conduct the preclinical validation of the T cell cancer targeting therapies so they can be tested in patients through early phase clinical trials. We hope that our novel therapies will provide new treatment options and improve survival in patients with T cell leukemias and lymphomas.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

TCR-directed immunotoxins and antibody drug conjugates for the treatment of T cell malignancies

The Jackson Laboratory

Jennifer Trowbridge is an Associate Professor at The Jackson Laboratory, where she has had her independent laboratory since 2012, and is adjunct faculty at Tufts University School of Medicine and the University of Maine. She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Western Ontario in 2006 and completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Stuart Orkin at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Trowbridge’s research interests span hematopoiesis, stem cell biology, aging, and cancer biology. The current focus of her laboratory is on cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic processes underlying hematopoietic stem cell dysregulation in age-related clonal hematopoiesis and myeloid malignancies. She is a Scholar of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and past recipient of the Janet Rowley Award from the International Society for Experimental Hematology, the V Foundation V Scholar Award, American Society of Hematology Scholar Award, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar Award in Aging.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Discovery of Aging-Driven Mechanisms Causing Clonal Hematopoiesis (CH) and its Progression to Hematological Malignancy

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

Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Teresa Palomero is a molecular and cellular biologist. She is a Professor at Columbia University in the Institute for Cancer Genetics. Her laboratory focuses on the identification of molecular alterations responsible for the development of Peripheral T-cell lymphomas, a heterogeneous group of very aggressive lymphoid malignances. Dr. Palomero has been a pioneer in the genomic analysis of Peripheral T-cell lymphoma cases and in the development of mouse models for better understanding the evolution of the disease and test novel therapeutic agents. Her extensive work on hematologic malignancies has led to the identification of key genomic alterations in leukemia and lymphoma including some currently used for molecular diagnosis.

Dr. Palomero scientific work has been published in top tier scientific journals including Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine and Cancer Cell, among others.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Targeting Microenvironment Determinants in Peripheral T-cell Lymphoma

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

I am the Edward P. Evans Chair in MDS at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) where I also serve as Chair of the Molecular Pharmacology Program. My clinical areas of expertise are in myeloid malignancies, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and rare forms of leukemias (hairy cell leukemia, CMML, BPDCN, and histiocytoses). 

Over the last ten years, my laboratory has been focused on understanding alterations in the process of RNA splicing in cancer. Motivated by the discovery of high frequency mutations in the splicing machinery in leukemias and MDS, my lab’s work has led to the development of several therapeutic approaches for these genetic subtypes of cancer. I have received the Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research from the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology, and the Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

TCR T cells for the treatment of SRSF2 mutant myeloid neoplasms

The Brigham and Women’s Hospital

My scientific background involves the functional characterization of rare immune cells called dendritic cells in advanced melanoma patients. These cells are master regulators of immunity and are responsible for orchestrating anti-cancer responses driven by effector cells called T cells. My PhD focused on patients who received immunotherapy via antibodies that reinvigorate the immune system, also known as immune checkpoint inhibitors. I collected patient blood samples before and during treatment, and found that a critical subtype of dendritic cell is numerically and functionally impaired in patients who did not respond to immunotherapy compared to those who responded. In my current lab, I leveraged my experience in immune cell research and now study how a novel drug combination can be used to target and kill acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. This innovative approach targets two biologically important processes within a cell – the protein-making machinery and the control of cell death.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Cotargeting oncogenic protein translation and apoptosis in acute myeloid leukemia

Weill Cornell Medicine

Dan Landau, MD, PhD is Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a Core Member of the New York Genome Center. He is an hemato-oncologist whose long-term goal is to develop novel approaches to address cancer evolution as a central obstacle to cure. His research group is funded by the NCI, NHLBI and NHGRI, and his work has led to recognition and awards including Stand Up to Cancer, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Vallee Scholar, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Defining the role of DNA methylation modifier mutations in reshaping blood differentiation topology

Mayo Clinic

Dr. Thomas Witzig received the B.S. degree in biology at Illinois State University and the M.D. degree at University of Illinois College of Medicine. He completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Iowa followed by a clinical fellowship in hematology/oncology at Mayo Clinic.  He completed a year of laboratory research in multiple myeloma and lymphoma under the direction of Drs. Philip Greipp and Robert A. Kyle.  Dr. Witzig has been on the staff at Mayo Clinic since 1986. 

 Dr. Witzig’s clinical and research interests focus on blood cancers, especially non-Hodgkin and Hodgkin lymphoma. His current focus is on agents that interfere with the DNA damage repair pathways and understanding the role of maladaptive inflammation in lymphoproliferative diseases. He has been a leader in the development of radioimmunotherapy, mTOR inhibitors, and immunomodulatory drugs such as lenalidomide.  His group was the first to report the effectiveness rituximab for the autoimmune diseases that are IgG4 mediated and involve organs such as the orbit and pancreas. His research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Predolin Foundation, among other organizations.  During COVID-19 his lab discovered one of the mechanisms that the COVID-19 virus uses to cause severe disease. This is now being investigated in patients with Long COVID-19. Dr. Witzig has been honored with several awards during his career, including the Department of Medicine Outstanding Investigator, the Henry S. Plummer Distinguished Physician, and most recently the Barbara Woodward Lips Professor 1.

He has served as a teacher and mentor and has given numerous international, national and regional presentations, in addition to invited presentations.  Dr. Witzig has co-authored more than 500 articles, books, book chapters, letters, and more than 600 abstracts.

Program Name(s)

IMPACT

Project Title

REACH: Recruitment Expansion through community Access to Clinical trials in Hematologic malignancies

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

I am a pediatric oncologist and associate professor in the division of bone marrow transplantation at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. I have a clinical and research interest in graft versus host disease because this is the most significant, devastating and life-impacting complication after a bone marrow transplant. I led the study in children of high dose oral vitamin A and showed that when given before starting chemotherapy, vitamin A reduces acute gastrointestinal and chronic graft versus host disease. I am now collaborating with 3 adult BMT programs to try and validate my findings in adult BMT patients as adults tend to have more chronic GVHD than children and I would like to extend this easy and effective strategy to patients of all ages across the US and worldwide.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

A randomized clinical trial of oral vitamin A to reduce chronic graft versus host disease in BMT

The University of Chicago

Dr. Megan McNerney, MD/PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Pediatrics at The University of Chicago. She is a cancer genomicist and physician-scientist investigating how genetic changes alter normal hematopoiesis and drive malignancy. She also serves as an Attending in the Genomic and Molecular Pathology clinical laboratory. Dr. McNerney leads a team of 14 scientists interrogating the pathogenesis of loss of chromosome 7 and CUX1 in high-risk myeloid malignancies. She has published 34 manuscripts, many in top-tier journals. Mentoring and education are among her most meaningful roles, and the majority of her trainees have remained in biomedical research after leaving the lab. She is also dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of her scholarship. Dr. McNerney has received numerous honors, including the Blood Cancer United Fellow Award and the Blood Cancer United, Illinois Chapter Researcher of the Year.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Genomic interrogation of high-risk myeloid neoplasms to identify new therapies

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Research

Qian Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow in the Dr. Abdel-Wahab’s lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She developed synthetic introns to selectively targeting U2AF1 mutated myeloid cells. U2AF1 mutations characterize high risk forms of MDS and are also common in elderly patients with AML. She aims to optimize these synthetic introns and develop novel lipid nanoparticles delivery of the synthetic introns into mice. Qian received her Ph.D. training in the Dr. Krainer lab at Cold spring harbor laboratory, where she developed novel RNA therapeutics to target a driver mutation of a deadly pediatric brain tumor known as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas. This work was published in Science Translational Medicine with Qian as a first author. She also contributed to the development of innovative RNA therapeutics to modulate RNA splicing in cystic fibrosis. Qian is a key coauthor for these studies that were published in papers in Nucleic Acids Research, PNAS, and Nature Communications.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Synthetic introns to target U2AF1 mutant leukemias and dissect molecular basis for mis-splicing

University of Iceland

Professor Sigurður Yngvi Kristinsson is currently consolidating his position as one of the leading researchers world-wide in the field of multiple myeloma, its precursors, its epidemiology, progression, and treatment. This has been the main thrust of his scientific and clinical efforts from the time he defended his thesis on monoclonal gammopathies at the Karolinska Institutet in 2009. In 2012 he became the youngest full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iceland and he is a consultant at Landspitali University Hospital. He designed and leads the largest myeloma screening study in the world, the iStopMM project in which over 80,000 individuals provided informed consent. His current research group includes 7 PhD-students, three postdocs, a lab with 4 biologists, 6 research nurses, three statisticians/data manager, and five support staff. He is an author of more than 110 scientific papers including the current guidelines for myeloma treatment and follow up and has an h-index of 57.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Early Detection and Intervention in Smoldering Multiple Myeloma: population-based screening and treatment; Edit-SMM